Church #7
Church #7?
Central Christian church
Child check-in measures were satisfactory
Walked in 7 minutes late, worship seems well thought out, and not musically deficient.
Pastor steps up and gives a type of pep-talk and has prayer people come up.
Next song. I realize that not alot of people are singing along, and not because it’s an unfamiliar song, it’s a retooled hymn. “take my life and let it be” but the girl leading worship has a very strong voice and adds a lot of vocal stylings. Plus there are no backup singers. When she belts it out or adds a trill here or there, there is no melody to follow. I don’t know if this is their normal setup…1 good backup singer would solve that easily.
She also prays…effusively. She prayed like 5 scriptures strung together. And then she steps forward and Introduces the topic and the opening video. Which I immediately realize she is in. Self-produced, she’s doing street interviews. They have a good camera. Maybe even a steadicam. Editing is ok but some cheesiness on the fx. We all make those mistakes at some point, right?
Pastor steps up again. We are talking about Heaven. For the next three weeks, apparently.
This seems to be a “what does the Bible tell us about Heaven? And how should we live in light of this information?”
Apparently we missed the “hell” message a few weeks ago.
So far so good.
There is music playing loudly in another part of the buidling. I guess the kids/youth have a seperate service?
He is using a lot of scriptures. He warned at the beginning that it would be a lot, so I’ll take that as a sign that it’s not the usual? I’m tracking with him so far.
Sermon lasts 48 minutes or so, it was a lot to cram into that short time frame! a plethora of scripture references. No red-flags, nothing stood out that might be a theological concern. We stood up and the couple immediately behind us shook our hands and exchanged pleasantries and they were our age and “normal” looking. That’s always a good sign. They have a brief “meet and greet” for guests right after the service, so we stayed for that. You introduce yourself and watch a 3 minute video of the pastor describing the churches vision, etc. Interesting format, but not bad. They could easily be an ARC church if they wanted.
Shannon’s comments when we got in the car was that the message was kinda hard for him to follow. Something about a headache. I followed along just fine, not sure I learned anything but I was entertained by the pastor’s hypotheses that we can know what heaven is like by reading what the bible says about it and then applying our imagination.
On the ride home, we kinda were like “Man, I wish so and so’s church was here. That’s where I would go.” (fill in the blank - Chris Hodges, Andy Stanley, etc.)
