Success In Our Church Shopping Endeavor?

It has been just over eighteen months since our move to Indianapolis, and we have been searching for a church where we could feel at home ever since. At times, we thought we had found just the right church, only to later question whether God was calling us to that particular church or not.

Today, we made our first visit to Heartland Church in Fishers, Indiana. Usually, when I write about our "church shopping" experiences here, I don't actually share the name of the church. That's because usually my wife and I have not felt that we were moved to attend the particular church I was writing about, and I wouldn't want to say anything that might discourage anyone from attending any specific church that is trying to do the work of the Lord.

Today, our visit to Heartland Church (@HeartlandIndy on Twitter) was a very positive experience for the entire family. When we first pulled into the parking lot for the 11AM service, the lot was virtually empty. We began wondering what kind of turn out there might be. From the moment we walked into the church and approached a man standing by an information desk, we all felt right at home. We first met Ed, who introduced himself as a full-time volunteer staff member who works with small groups. We introduced ourselves to Ed, who then introduced us to another staff-member who helped us to get our kids checked into Adventureland, where they would attend their own age-tailored church services.

My wife and I then made our way to the sanctuary, where we had our choice of nearly any seat in the house. We picked comfortable seats on the aisle in the fourth row and waited for the service to begin as people slowly made their way in (there turned out to be many more people there when the service was over than we had thought there were).

The worship band was led by Rick Stump, and they played popular contemporary Christian tunes that made my wife and I feel right at home. Best of all, they didn't seem to be performing, as we have felt that many bands at the churches we've attended were doing -- they seemed to be worshiping the Lord.

The sermon was delivered by Rick's father (I believe his name is Gary), and was delivered in such a way that anyone listening could feel a part of the discussion. He did not teach down to us, did not teach at us, did not speak over our heads. It was a very informative, very enjoyable sermon.

After the service, the most important test of all: the kids' reaction to their individual services. When I asked my son if he liked it, he said, "Did you love it?" When I said yes, he said, "Me, too."

Enough said, so far. They didn't observe Communion today, but many churches don't observe Communion more than once a month, or every other week. We'll see how that goes down when the time comes, but based on the rest of the experience, we are both more likely to be flexible with the Communion service. Most churches we've visited observe Communion by dipping the Communion bread into the cup. We have always preferred taking the bread and the cup separately. I guess we will learn in time what method Heartland Church employs. In the meantime, we'll be returning to Heartland quite regularly, I believe.

Your comments?

Joe

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And The Hunt Continues...

My wife and I have resumed our church shopping, after having thought we found a church home were we felt we belonged. Changes at the church with service times, communion, etc., made it just not feel like our church home any longer.

So today we headed out to another church near us in Greenfield, Indiana. As usual, I won't mention the church here, because although we didn't feel called to make it a permanent home, the church is doing the work of God, and I wouldn't want to say anything that might have a negative impact on their mission. But I do like to share our church shopping experiences here, as it helps me to sort through the experience, and I always invite readers to share their church recommendations with me.

We arrived today at a church that is a bit smaller than the Indianapolis churches we have been to so far, making it a little less stressful for our first visit. While we both prefer a larger church, some of the Indianapolis mega-churches are just too large. We entered the church for the second morning worship service and found several people standing in the vestibule chatting. We approached a desk in the middle of the vestibule that stood beneath a sign reading Guest Services, where we waited for approximately five minutes. No one was manning the desk, and none of the many parishioners standing about talking seemed to recognize us as newcomers without a clue. This, for my wife and I, is always an important first test of any church we attend -- are we made to feel welcome? There seems to be no middle ground here, as most churches either go overboard in making newcomers feel welcome or seem to miss the mark completely. After our five minute wait, a woman who had stepped up to the Guest Services Desk next to us, finally spoke up and asked if she could help us. She, of course, had been standing there for almost as long as we were -- maybe deciding whether she felt called to help us?

We explained that we were first-timers there and didn't know where to take our three and five year old kids. She pointed down a hallway and told us to take them there and sign them in. We followed her guidance and dropped our son off in a gym where several other children his age were playing. We still weren't made to feel completely welcome, and were told that our daughter (the three year old) would need to be taken back out into the vestibule and down a hallway by the offices to another children's worship area.

We walked out and headed through the vestibule, unsure of where we were going and with no one to guide us, and finally ended up at a door labeled Offices. For the first time, we were made to feel a little welcome, by a teenager who was sitting at the desk signing in children. He gave us more information in thirty seconds than anyone had given us in the entire time we had been there. After dropping off our daughter, we headed into the sanctuary and found a seat in the third row from the front.

The service was scheduled to start at 10:45 am, but at 10:48 a countdown timer displayed on one the screens showed that four minutes still remained before the service would be under way. The band came onto the stage in a state of chaos, as portable speakers were still being set up and people continued to mill around in their seats chatting. I started to get the feeling that everyone there knew everyone else -- sort of like the Baptist church my parents took me to as a youngster. It wasn't a bad feeling, though when you're new and the only one who doesn't know everyone else, it can be a little uncomfortable.

The service finally got under way with some contemporary Christian music. The band was pretty good, with five singers, a bass guitarist, an electric guitarist, an acoustic guitarist, a keyboardist, a drummer, and another drummer on bongos. Eleven people. Wow!

The music was interrupted for announcements, then resumed for another song or two before the band left the stage and one of the singers delivered a message about surrendering everything to God. I enjoyed the message, though my wife felt that the speaker relied too heavily on his notes throughout the sermon. Thus far, I wasn't turned on or off with the experience, for the most part. I didn't feel moved to make it a permanent church home, but felt that we could return there from time to time if we didn't find someplace that felt like home.

Then the sermon ended with communion. I have been very vocal here about my thoughts on communion, so I'll give only a brief recap here. I think communion is a very personal experience that a follower of Christ shares with his Savior. I believe that Biblically we are instructed to take bread and the cup and drink, and I have frequently been disappointed with the number of churches we have attended that observe the practice of dipping their bread into the communion cup, rather than actually drinking. My wife and I have agreed that we cannot feel at home if we do not feel called to participate in communion. While today's church observed what I consider to be the Biblical act of taking the bread and the cup separately, they did something that made my wife and I feel awkward -- so awkward, in fact, that we chose not to partake of communion. Upon the urging of the man who delivered the message (and I still don't know if he was a Pastor, or what), virtually the entire congregation rose from their seats and formed two lines that led to the altar. As each person made his or her way to the altar, they knelt at the altar in prayer or meditation, reflection -- whatever they chose to do -- then one of several people standing on the stage offered the plate of bread (typical communion wafers) and cups (typical grape juice) to them when they were done. After partaking of communion, each person just left the sanctuary. In the meantime, my wife and I (and a very few others throughout the sanctuary) sat in our seats. I cannot speak for how others were feeling, but I felt as if a neon sign hung over my head pointing down at me, calling me out for not partaking in communion. When my wife noticed that everyone was just leaving after partaking of communion, we arose and shuffled out of the sanctuary.

My problem with the way this church observed communion is that it did not appeal to me as a time of intimate reflection and communion with my savior. It felt as if I was being supervised through the process by church elders and, once my time of prayer at the altar had been observed and approved, I would be offered the bread and cup. It did not feel like communion to me.

After leaving the sanctuary we went to pick up my daughter first. This is the final test of a church experience for us -- whether it gets our children's stamp of approval or not. In this case, both of our children came running out of their respective classes when they saw us -- right past the caretakers who were there to ensure that the children were delivered only to the appropriate adult that dropped them off. I expected them both to say that they didn't like it, and was shocked when my daughter said she had fun and my son said he loved it. Upon further conversation over a picnic lunch in the park, my son revealed that they didn't even have a Bible story in his class. Now, I know that probably isn't the case, but my thinking is this: if they did have a Bible story and the impact of it was so minimal that my son didn't even realize it was a Bible story, then what impact could it possibly have had on my impressionable young son.

So it is agreed that we will continue our search for a new church home in the Indianapolis area. We have been here for almost eighteen months now, and we just can't seem to find the right place. I sometimes wonder if we're being too picky, or too judgmental. But I keep coming to the conclusion that just isn't the case. We aren't looking for the perfect church, just the church that we feel God is calling us to attend. So far, I haven't felt that calling but once, and later felt that maybe I had misinterpreted that calling (which is why we're out looking once again).

So I ask you, faithful readers, have you any helpful suggestions for us? If you read through our past church shopping experiences, you can get a general idea of what we're looking for. If you know of a church that you feel might be a fit for us, please let me know.

Your comments?

Joe

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Communion

26 During the meal, Jesus took and blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to his disciples: Take, eat. This is my body. 27 Taking the cup and thanking God, he gave it to them: Drink this, all of you. 28 This is my blood, God's new covenant poured out for many people for the forgiveness of sins. 29 "I'll not be drinking wine from this cup again until that new day when I'll drink with you in the kingdom of my Father." Matthew 26:26-29 [MSG]

When I moved my family from Terre Haute to Indianapolis thirteen months ago, we embarked on a lengthy church hunt, visiting different churches every weekend, hoping to find one where we felt welcome, at home, where we felt God was calling us to return. Week after week we found ourselves disappointed, with the sermon some weeks, with the music other weeks, even with the offerings for children's worship at times -- and each and every week, we were disappointed with Communion.

In Matthew 26, Christ instructed His disciples to remember Him through Communion (a term not used by Christ, but later used by Christians to label the practice): the breaking and eating of bread and drinking of the cup. Just as Christ instructed us to follow Him in Baptism by immersion, He instructed us in the proper way to remember Him in Communion. Christ did not tell us to practice sprinkle Baptism, and He did not tell us to practice Communion by dipping bread into the cup. We follow His instructions for Baptism to the letter. Why, then, did every church we visited insist on dipping Communion bread into the cup?

We finally found a church on the northwest corner of Indianapolis where we felt comfortable, where we felt welcome, where the kids enjoyed their worship time and we felt they spent it learning and worshipping. We finally found a church that observed Communion in the manner Christ instructed. It has been "our" church ever since.

A month ago, our church started a Saturday night service -- in an attempt to accomodate a growing congregation (5000 most weekends) and to reach out to those who don't (or can't) attend on Sundays. We attended the first Saturday evening service and loved it. We felt that God had blessed us -- everything about the service was just what we had been looking for all along.

We missed the second week due to obligations at my work, and returned on week three to find that everything had changed. The worship music -- while still played by the same band -- had become somehow countrified. Worse yet, when it came time for Communion, we were instructed to break a piece of bread off the loaf and dip into the cup. Why? We both felt very out of place during the service, and later agreed to try Saturday night one more time.

We did just that last evening, and were pleased to see that the music was much more to our liking. Don't misread me, I understand that going to church is not an entertainment event. I don't expect the worship band to cater to us. I understand that we go for worship and praise, but it's much easier to worship through song when you know the songs and enjoy the style of music.

What we weren't pleased with was Communion. As we entered the sanctuary and saw Communion implements designed for the dipping of bread, we were both disappointed. We both chose not to partake of Communion -- not out of protest or purpose.

This is my issue with it: the dipping of bread into the cup is not Biblical. No matter which book of the Gospel you read, or which translation, you won't find a passage where Christ instructed us to dip the bread into the cup.

Matthew, Mark, and Luke all described Communion as drinking from the cup. Only John even mentions dipping the bread, but not in reference to Communion. John speaks of Jesus dipping a crust of bread into the cup and saying "The one to whom I give this crust of bread after I've dipped it" will be the one to betray Me. So dipping the bread was not an act of Communion, but instead Christ's way of identifying the one who would betray him.

Dipping the bread into the cup is not a Biblical way to remember Christ through Communion, just as sprinkling water is not a Biblical way to follow Christ in Baptism. Why, then, do so many Christian churches choose this method of "Communion?" To me, if it is not Biblical, then why do it? Why practice something that Christ didn't teach in lieu of following His instructions literally?

My wife and I did not -- and will not -- observe Communion through the dipping of bread. Maybe this is God's way of telling us that the Saturday evening service was not what He had planned for us. Maybe He's telling us that we should return to the Sunday morning service, or possibly continue searching for a new church home. Unfortunately, God doesn't often write His message on a wall for us to read as we drive down the street. He often leaves it to us to interpret what He is trying to tell us.

Next Sunday, we will be returning to the same church, but not on Saturday evening. The dipping of bread might be fine for the other 443 people in attendance on Saturday night, but not for us. We will return to Sunday morning, and hopefully feel the same calling we felt several months ago when we first attended a Sunday morning service at this church. Neither one of us wants to start searching for a church home again.

Don't believe that the quotes above are the same in every translation? Click them, then feel free to select a different translation at BibleGateway, and you'll see that they all tell the same tale of Communion.

Your comments?

Joe

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The Church Hunt Is Over (God Willing)

This past Sunday, the family and I continued our church hunt in Indianapolis. We've been searching for a new church closer to our new home in Indianapolis, but have been very disappointed with everything we've found so far. Quite possibly because we are allowing ourselves to draw too many comparisons with our old church in Terre Haute. So far, some of the major differences we've encountered include:

• Many of the churches in Indy seem to practice a modified form of Intinction when they take Communion. My wife and I are both very familiar with taking the bread and the cup separately, not dipping the bread into a community juice.


• We have grown very accustomed to a period of corporate worship (defined as a Worship Leader and a band leading the congregation in thirty minutes or so of whorshipping God through contemporary Christian music) after the sermon. Every church we have encountered has their longer worship period before the sermon at the beginning of the service, as if it's intended to allow ample time for stragglers to make it into their seats without missing the message. We prefer the latter period of worship because it allows for time to reflect upon the message, pray and commune with God.


• We have found that at some churches, the mere process of dropping our children off for childrens worship and making our way into the sanctuary is overwhelming. This doesn't seem to be in any way associated with the size of the congregation or the church, as I'll explain later in this article.

That seems to touch on the majority of the major differences. We have visited several churches over the past several months, and have not yet found ourselves feeling comfortable and welcome to the point that we just knew we could return. A couple of churches have been better than others and seemed like they might have to suffice, but I think we've finally broken the chain of disappointment.

This past Sunday our church hunting took us to East 91st Street Christian Church, more commonly referred to on their website as E91. The church claims to have over three thousand in attendance each week and is part of the Restoration movement. It is a non-denominational church with the sole purpose of serving and worshipping Christ.

We were at first overwhelmed with traffic in the area as we approached the church. There is ongoing construction at the site while this already large church continues to grow. Officers were posted along East 91st Street to direct traffic and ease the congestion, and it seemed adequate enough.

Having looked at the church floor plan online in advance, I tried to park as close to the childrens wing as possible, and we arrived with adequate time to get the kids registered and signed into their respective classes. We entered the church as close to the childrens wing as we could find and approached a well-marked information desk. When we explained that we were there for the first time and wanted to drop the kids off for childrens worship, the woman serving at the desk was very warm and welcoming. She gave us some information about the church, to include their fall program directory, called Lifebook. She then walked with us to the childrens wing and waited while we took our daughter to her class. The entire way to the childrens wing, she was very conversational and made us feel very welcome.

We then took our son to his class, which was when the drama began. Since we started our church hunt, our son has been very resistant to going to childrens worship at new churches. I haven't been able to figure out why this is, but it has been a challenge every week to get him to leave us to join his age group. E91 proved to be no exception. My son hid his eyes and nearly had to be carried into his classroom. For nearly fifteen minutes I, my wife, and two adults in the class spoke with my son and tried to make him feel more at ease. In the end, we agreed to let our son go to the sanctuary with us, with the understanding that if we felt called to return to the church, one of us would stay with him next week in his class.

As we entered the sanctuary, it once again was difficult to find enough seats together for the three of us. Luckily an usher proved helpful in seating us. The sanctuary is arranged so that the speaker stands on a walkway that extends into the center of the room. There are several rows of theater-style seating facing the front of the walkway. On each side of the walkway there are several more rows of theater-style seating placed perpendicular to the those at the end of the walkway, so that everyone sitting in the sanctuary is looking at the speaker. There are balconies on each side and in the back of the sanctuary, as well. There is a choir loft behind the speaker that was not in use as we chose to attend the contemporary service, not the traditional service.

The worship band was on stage playing as we seated ourselves. They had a very polished sound and the acoustics of the sanctuary were great. Midway through the second song, my son said he wanted to go back to his class. I guess he realized he would have more fun there than he would sitting with mommy and daddy listening to music that he probably thought was too loud. I quickly took him to his class and returned just in time for Communion.

After Communion (traditional Communion, which made us both happy) and the offertory, the Pastor took the stage and delivered a very thought-provoking message. I took several pages of notes while Pastor Derek Duncan delivered a message in a very fast tempo.

After the sermon, we picked up our children, where everyone remembered us and made us feel very welcome again. Though my son played games during the ride home saying he didn't want to go back to E91, he later told us he had been joking, making it unanimous: we will be returning to E91 this weekend.

As I said earlier, I don't believe that the overwhelming feeling we've had at several other churches is at all related to the size of the building or the size of the congregation. We have visited smallish churches where things were so disorganized as to make the whole experience seem stressful, and we have been to more than one very large church where things went so smoothly that one might forget that it was a large church. With over three thousand people attending on Sunday, E91 is one of those churches that has made the large seem not so large and eliminated much of the overwhelming feeling that many come to associate with larger churches.

The experience was very positive, and as my wife and I left we both said that we felt our hunt may be over. We both feel that quite possibly God is calling us to become involved in the community at E91 and to settle down in a new church home. We certainly intend to give Him the time to make the message clear to us.

Your comments?

Joe

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Vacation: Day Five (& the Church Hunt Continues)

Vacation day five was a very relaxing day. We started the morning by continuing our church hunt, trying to find something closer to home where we feel welcome, comfortable, and moved to worship the Lord.

Prior to moving to Indianapolis, we attended Maryland Community Church in Terre Haute, where we still return on occasion for the eXchange Community Worship led by Pastor Scot Longyear. It's a ninety minute drive to go there, so we have been hoping to find something closer to home. We have visited several Indianapolis churches in the past few months, and have had a difficult time finding a place that we can call "home." In most cases, my wife and I both know right away whether the church we're in feels like home or not. More accurately, we both have known right away that the church doesn't feel like home. We haven't yet found a church that we have felt we could call home. Until, possibly, today.

Our church hunt took us this morning to Common Ground Christian Church on Illinois Street in Indianapolis. We were running a bit behind this morning, as my wife wasn't feeling well, so things were already under way when we arrived for the 11am service.

As we arrived, we were shocked to see the sanctuary so full that we were concerned there might not be two seats together for us to sit. My wife thinking she might have seen some place for us to sit, we decided to drop off the kids and join the worship service.

We had to find our own way to the children's worship area. That wasn't difficult, as there was one main hallway directly outside the sanctuary, and there were signs clearly marking what each room was. We first took our daughter to the toddler class. We were greeted there by a nice gentleman who made us feel welcome and told us how to get to the Kindergarten class to drop off my son. We were greeted there as well, and for the first time in quite some time, my son wasn't resistant to being left in the class.

When we returned to the sanctuary, we found that there indeed were not two seats together for us. Instead, we went up to the balcony and took two seats in the back row. Not normally where we would want to sit, but we were latecomers to the service.

The service today opened with five or six people on the stage reading the entire book of Jonah. We arrived to our seats just as they finished reading and the worship leader took over.

The worship was led by one man, playing an acoustic guitar, with no backup band. There were drums, keyboards, and other band equipment on the stage, but for some reason today the worship band consisted of one person on acoustic guitar. Interestingly enough, that was all that was needed, as you could actually hear all the way up into the balcony the entire congregation joining in the singing. It was quite inspirational. In fact, before the Pastor even took the stage, my wife jotted a note to me that read:

I think I like this church. We'll see after the message.

Communion took place before the Pastor took the stage, and once again we were exposed to the unusual form of Communion that I have referred to as a modified form of intinction. Though it isn't the form of Communion we've grown accustomed to, it appears to be quite commonly practiced in Indianapolis, and we are starting to get used to it.

The Pastor delivered a message from the 4th chapter of Jonah (see link above), about choices. Most notably, we were not created to live outside of Eden. Are we choosing to move toward Eden, or away from it? I won't share all of my notes here, as I'll likely post some commentary on it this week at Soapy Joe. I'll add an updated link here when it's available. We both enjoyed the sermon.

After the sermon, the worship leader returned to the stage during a time for people to make a decision for Christ. As I stated in last week's article, my wife and I prefer a longer time of corporate worship after the message to give people more time to make a decision. No church as of yet has done it this way.

One of the most notable things about the service was what appeared to be the total absence of a time to take an offering. Unless this happened at the very opening of the service before the reading from the book of Jonah, then there was no offering taken during the service.

Most importantly, I think, was the fact that both of my children said they enjoyed the children's worship, that they wanted to return again, and my son actually remembered what his teaching had been about (Esther).

I think we'll be returning again soon to Common Ground, though we will certainly plan to arrive early enough to be seated closer to the front of the sanctuary and to ensure we don't miss the beginning of the service. I'm not completely decided yet, but we may very well have found a local church that we can call home.

After church, we did a little grocery shopping and returned home, where I grilled one of the juiciest, most tender steaks I have ever eaten, as well as veggies for my wife, garlic & onion corn, and hot dogs for the kids. It was our Labor Day cookout, since we'll be spending my son's fifth birthday tomorrow at King's Island.

Today was a nice relaxing day, getting the kids to bed early so they can get plenty of rest for tomorrow. I have just three days left before returning to work, and tomorrow will likely be the busiest of them all.

Your comments?

Joe

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Church Hunting Update

Last Sunday, my family and I visited another Indianapolis area church in our seemingly endless quest to find a new church closer to home. Prior to moving to Indianapolis, we attended Maryland Community Church in Terre Haute, where we still return on occasion for the eXchange Community Worship led by Pastor Scot Longyear. It's a ninety minute drive to go there, so we have been hoping to find something closer to home.

I have shared most of our experiences here. I never mention the name of a church that we feel we couldn't return to, as I wouldn't want to have any negative impact at all on a church that is truly trying to do the work of God. This week, unfortunately, I won't be sharing the name of the church we visited on Sunday. My wife and I have both determined that we won't be returning there.

When we entered the church and told someone that we were new and looking for where to take our children for the children's worship service, the person who greeted us was very friendly. She found someone to take us back to the children's worship. That person was very friendly and had polite conversation with us the entire way around and behind the sanctuary to the children's worship area on the other side.

We first dropped off our daughter into a room with only two other toddlers in it. There was a sign mandating "No Shoes Beyond This Point" for the children to remove their shoes before entering. We weren't crazy about our daughter having to run around in her stocking feet, but we complied. My wife asked the woman watching over the class at the time if she could show my daughter (whom we've been trying to potty train) where the restroom was and help her go before we left her. The woman directed my wife out of the room and down the hall into the next room, and then explained that they just take them through the back and avoid the hall completely. We both were a bit disappointed that she didn't (1st) offer to take our daughter herself and (2nd) offer to show us the route she would be taking if my daughter needed to go during the service. We were later disappointed when we found the room packed with toddlers and only two adults when we picked our daughter up after the service. My daughter still hadn't been taken to the restroom.

We then took my son to his age group. He has been quite odd lately when we take him to new churches. He has always loved going to church at Maryland, but has been very hesitant about leaving us to attend to worship with other kids his age at the past few churches we've visited. After a few brief moments of coaxing, my son went off to his class.

My wife and I then walked through a door directly into the sanctuary, which of course made us wonder why we had been taken on such a circuitous route earlier when we could have just walked across the sanctuary and through the door.

The sanctuary was a little odd, as it appears that the church has rented a rather large portion of an office building and modified it to suit their needs. There were no pews, which for us is a plus, and no folding chairs, which we encountered recently at another church we visited. The chairs were arranged in typical sanctuary fashion, and we selected our seats near the center in the second row.

Shortly after we were seated, they began setting up three tables in the front of the sanctuary for Communion. They set out two wine glasses on each of two tables, two grape juice glasses on a third, and two baskets of bread on each. We were both immediately concerned that we would once again be partaking of Communion in some modified form of intinction, where you take the bread, dip it in the drink, and take them both together. We have both grown quite accustomed to taking the bread and the juice separately, and feel very uneasy about the modified intinction method. In fact, when the time came for Communion, we both passed on it.

The service started as many of them have at the churches we have visited: with about thirty minutes of worship music preceding the sermon. My wife and I both prefer that the period of worship music follow the sermon rather than precede it. We feel that after the sermon, it's nice to have a time of worship and praise where people can reflect on the message, let God speak to them, and have plenty of time to make a decision. It also allows for Communion to be taken in a more personal manner. It seems that every church we have visited lately has their worship music before the sermon, and based on the constant influx of the congregation, I wonder if the positioning of the worship music isn't to allow everyone ample time to trickle in before the sermon.

The worship band consisted of four women: two singing background vocals, one playing acoustic guitar, and the worship leader on keyboards. They were complemented by a man on electric guitar, a man on drums, and apparently one other man I couldn't see that my wife told me about later. They didn't really move us much into worship. My wife and I agreed in later discussion that we felt that they weren't leading worship, but were rather attempting to perform for the congregation. In fact, the only one of them that I felt actually looked genuine on stage was the young teenager playing acoustic guitar. The others all appeared to me to be trying too hard, and failing.

Before the sermon, two women from the church were brought up onto the stage to tell their story of how they went into some local "gentleman's clubs" to give away free oil changes to the homeless mothers who worked their. It was quite an inspirational story, actually, and I can't possibly do it justice by repeating it here.

We both enjoyed the sermon, with one exception. At one point, the Senior Pastor made the comment that "we worship a God we cannot see." I immediately thought (and took note in my Life Journal) that we do not actually worship a God we can't see. Quite the opposite, in fact, if we just open our eyes. I see God in everything around me: plants, animals, trees -- all the beauty of Creation. I see God in my wonderful kids and beautiful wife. I see God every day in some of the least expected places. And I think we are only unable to see the God we worship if we allow ourselves to be blinded to Him.

It's hard sometimes to relate these experiences here without becoming judgmental of what we've experienced. We look for certain parts of the service to meet certain needs that we have in order to consider going back again. In this case, my son said he had a good time and wanted to go back, but he just didn't seem very enthusiastic about it. I know that my wife and I both were unenthusiastic. In fact, we agreed that we will not be returning to this church.

This weekend, we will be visiting a church that has been recommended to us by an Average Joe reader as well as by our Pastor, Scot Longyear. Hopefully I'll have good things and be able to share the name of the church next week. If you have any suggestions, please let my know via the comment or email links below.

Your comments?

Joe

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Church Shopping Continues

Our church shopping continues this week, as it did last week. I'll post about the church we plan to attend today later, but first wanted to share our experience last week at Park Chapel Christian Church in Greenfield, Indiana.

First, a reminder that this isn't intended to be a review of a church, or the service, or the music. I would never say or do anything to in any way cause harm to any person or entity attempting to do the work of the Lord. In fact, while I will likely discuss our experience at every church we attend, I will only mention the actual name of the church if I felt that we had a positive experience and would feel comfortable returning to the church again.

With that being said, last Sunday morning we attended the 11:15 version of The Crossing service at Park Chapel Christian Church in Greenfield. The church is about a twenty minute (or so) drive from home, making it close enough to actually become involved in activities throughout the week and not just on Sunday. One of our concerns attending our current church, which is ninety minutes away in Terre Haute, is that the distance alone makes it prohibitive for us to get involved in activities throughout the week.

We entered Park Chapel and were immediately greeted by a very friendly greeter. She made us feel comfortable and welcome, shared with us some general information on the church, the services, and the children's worship, asked us to sign in the guest register, and asked someone to take us to the children's worship area.

My four year old son has become surprisingly difficult to deal with at church lately. In the past, he has always enjoyed and even looked forward to going to church. He hasn't enjoyed the church shopping process at all. While our current church is among the largest in Terre Haute, the large churches we've been visiting in Indy are even larger, and that seems to make things difficult for my son. He was resistant, at first, to going into his age group in children's worship at Park Chapel, but eventually came around.

The children's worship is one of the most important factors for me, actually. While trying to raise my children to love the Lord and be productive, involved members of the church, it is imperative that they feel comfortable and welcome, have fun, and want to return to the children's worship in the future. This is always one of the key areas of discussion when we leave a church, and even though my son was at first hesitant, he came out of the service saying he had fun and wanted to go back. Of course he had fun -- when we picked him up after the service he and another boy were rolling on the floor wrestling. Harmlessly, of course.

Park Chapel is a church that appears to be rapidly growing. They have four services on Sunday mornings -- two in the sanctuary and two in the gym. We attended the second of the services in the gym, which featured an upbeat and inspirational message and a band led by Worship Leader Dean Nester playing contemporary Christian music (I'm hoping to feature some of his original music in a future episode of Soapy Joe). Some people might not think that the music is an important part of the church-going experience. For my wife and I, it is our time to celebrate God in a large group, to really commune with Him on our own personal level, and a time that really gets our juices flowing and gets us a positive, motivated start to the week. Though I grew up in a traditional Baptist church, with a full choir and hymnals in every seat, a church with a Contemporary Christian band is more to my liking in my middle age.

We have yet to find a church with the service laid out completely to our liking. Again, this is probably because we have grown accustomed to how things are done at our current church, which goes something like this:

• The service begins with a sort of call to worship, which is an upbeat contemporary Christian song played by the band (which in this case is usually led by the Pastor, Scot Longyear, and sometimes by part time Worship Leader Shawn Wallace).
• The call to worship is followed by a welcome, announcements, and an opening prayer.
• The Pastor delivers his sermon, and he does a very good job of speaking to a diverse age group. He seems to understand and relate to everyone individually all at once.
• The sermon is followed by a time of corporate worship, which consists of 20 to 40 minutes of music by the band, allowing the congregation to participate in whatever way they choose.
• This time of corporate worship includes an open invitation for people to confess their decisions and be Baptized, if they choose, as well as a time of Communion.
• The service is closed with prayer.
  

What we have found at every church we have visited so far places the bulk of the worship music before the sermon, following up with one or two songs during a time of invitation. Communion has occurred at various times during the service, and has been done in several different ways.

Our current church allows everyone to take the bread and the cup at the altar, or at their seats, or wherever they feel most comfortable doing so. My wife and I feel that this gives us the opportunity to actually commune with God. The churches we have visited have mostly passed the Communion in the traditional manner. This past week at Park Chapel, we experienced what for us was a unique different Communion experience. As we entered the gym, we saw a table with a plate of unleavened bread (not just the traditional Communion wafers) and a bowl filled with Communion juice. The Communion took place near the beginning of the service. In this unique Communion service, the congregation files past one of the Communion tables, where they take a piece of the unleavened bread and dip it in the bowl. They then take the Communion on their own. My wife and I both felt a little awkward partaking of Communion in this manner, both of us having grown accustomed to taking the bread and the cup separately.

I'm not positive who it was that presented the sermon. His name was Dave, but looking through the church staff I haven't been able to determine which Dave it was. He said something during the sermon that lead me to believe he was the Youth Pastor, but I'm more inclined to believe that he was the Senior Pastor. Regardless, the sermon was very energetic. The speaker was very enthusiastic and informative. The service we attended was obviously geared more toward youth than adults, though there were several adults in the congregation.

My wife and I both felt welcome at the church, though we weren't physically comfortable in the folding metal chairs set out in the gym, felt a little awkward with the Communion service, and felt that the sermon was geared more toward the younger group. We will likely attend the earlier The Crossing service, in hopes that it is targeted more to an adult crowd. I do believe that this church is growing, and that it is clearly doing the work of the Lord and making things happen in the Kingdom in Greenfield. If you're looking for a church where the Lord is moving, then Park Chapel is definitely worth a visit.

Will this be our new church home? That remains to be decided. As I said at the beginning of this article, we will be visiting another church today, and I'll share that experience later in the week.

Your comments?

Joe

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Church Shopping Again

The family and I were out church shopping again this morning. Having recently moved from Terre Haute to Indianapolis, we have been trying to find a new church home in Indy. Most Sundays, we have been making the trip from Indy back to Terre Haute, where the kids get a chance to visit with their maternal grandparents, and then we all go to church together. We really feel at home at our current church in Terre Haute, and it's been difficult to find something in Indy that gives us the same feeling.

I spoke recently about one of our recent "church shopping" outings -- which is really just my way of saying we went to a local church instead of making the trip back to Terre Haute. The two churches we have visited previously in Indianapolis just didn't make us feel at home. One visitor to the site who is a former resident of Indianapolis sent me a couple of church recommendations, which we plan to visit soon, and a friend of my wife's (who also happens to be the sister of our Pastor in Terre Haute) recommended a church as well. It was that church that we visited today.

As I stated in my comments about the last church we visited, I don't want this to come off as a review of a church. It's really just me relating our recent experience. And, because I would never want to do any harm to any organization that is truly trying to do the Lord's work, I will never mention the actual name of a church we visit unless we feel that it's someplace we could return to.

Which is why I can gladly share with you our experience today at Connection Pointe Christian Church of Brownsburg, Indiana.

As I said, this church came highly recommended to us by someone who my wife has recently become friends with, the sister of our current Pastor in Terre Haute. That alone led us to believe that it might be a promising situation for us. Connection Pointe has four services each weekend: one Saturday evening and three on Sunday morning, all of which have the same message but a different style of worship music to meet the tastes of every attendee. We chose to attend the 11:00 AM Sunday service, which is the "Modern Worship" service. We entered the church to the sound of a contemporary Christian rock band playing familiar and popular Christian music in the sanctuary. Led by Worship Leader Greg Frazee, the band has the popular modern sound that we've enjoyed at our church over the past several years.

A very important consideration for us when "church shopping" is whether we are made to feel at home. We entered Connection Pointe church by what appeared to be the main entrance, based on other people-traffic going in and coming out, and approached the information desk. We waited briefly while the woman attending the desk finished with another visitor, then my wife explained to her that it was our first time at the church and we needed to know where to take our kids for childrens worship. The woman warmly welcomed us, came out from behind the information desk, and led us directly to the childrens ministry area, where she introduced us to a gentleman who got our kids processed into the system. This, too, is a very important consideration for us. Not only must we be comfortable with the church, but our children must as well. In fact, it's actually more important that our children benefit from the church home that we choose, as we want them to be brought up to learn to love God and to serve and obey Him.

The kids were processed into their respective age groups, and we made our way to the sanctuary, where Greg Frazee and his band continued to play. The sanctuary was physically a little smaller than that at our regular church, but was filled to near capacity -- and this was the third service of the day and fourth of the weekend. Everyone was standing and joined in the worship for probably twenty minutes after we entered, at which time the speaker of the evening approached the stage.

As the Pastor and his wife are on "study break" during the month of July, there are guest speakers each weekend this month. Some from within the church, and others from elsewhere. Much to our surprise, we were familiar with today's speaker, Dave Butts of Harvest Prayer Ministries, as he is from Terre Haute and has spoken at our church there in the past. He has always struck me as a very engaging and informative teacher, and today proved to be no exception. [A Study Guide and Outline of the service are available for self study. My notes are available now at Soapy Joe.]

At the end of the service, all visitors were invited to "Room 103" to be greeted and welcomed to the church. Surprisingly, my wife said she wanted to go. Now, my wife is usually one who is very reserved about doing such things, so this told me that she was indeed very comfortable with the service and our experience to that point. We picked up our kids from their respective groups, and asked each of them the two most important questions (three for my son).

1. Did you have fun?
2. Do you want to come again?
3. [To my son] Did you learn anything? (or What did you learn?)
   

They both answered "Yes" to the first two questions, and my son was able to show us evidence that he had actually been taught a lesson and not just involved in supervised play. So far, it seemed that everyone was pretty happy with Connection Pointe church (the only sour point being that it was still almost a 45 minute drive from home, which is about half of what we drive to go back to Terre Haute for church).

We met with some representatives of the church in "Room 103." The kids were welcomed with cookies, we were asked to fill out a guest registry and greeted by some friendly people who made us feel welcome and valued. We were even given a small gift bag.

With guest speakers all month long, it's a little hard to say how we'll feel about the actual sermon portion of the service. We won't get a chance to hear the Lead Pastor actually speak until some time in August. That's really the only thing left that we need to evaluate to decide just how "at home" we can feel at Connection Pointe. We have all agreed that we would like to go back again after the Lead Pastor returns from "study break" to see if we feel reached by his teaching style. I would venture to say that if his teaching moves us, we may have found an alternative church home for the weekends that we don't make the trip to Terre Haute to visit with the in-laws.

I would guess that we'll probably attend at least one more church in Indianapolis during the month of July while we wait for the Lead Pastor of Connection Pointe to return in August. After all, I still have at least two recommendations from readers of the site to check out. If you have any suggestions of churches in the Indianapolis area that we might check out, please let me know. The rest of the Sundays until then, we will likely attend at our regular church home in Terre Haute.

Your comments?

Joe

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Church Shopping -- So To Speak

This isn't a review, though it will probably sound like one by the time I'm done with it. It isn't a review because I don't think it would be proper for me to "review" a church. After all, if they're doing the work of the Lord, who am I to judge the way in which they do it?

What it is, however, is my story of our latest endeavor to find a church we can call home in Indianapolis. My family and I moved from Terre Haute, Indiana, at the end of December. In the months preceding our move, my wife was Baptized at Maryland Community Church in Terre Haute, and we both had begun to feel quite convicted about becoming more involved and solidifying our walk with God. Then we moved.

Since our move, we have driven back to Terre Haute most Sundays to attend church and visit with my wife's parents. With gas surpassing the $4 a gallon mark, we decided that maybe it was time to cut back to making the trip every other week and finding another church home in Indianapolis. Today, we visited our second new church in Indy.

I won't say the name of the church here because, as I've said, it is not my position to judge the service or the participants. I only want to share my experience, and my frustration with the difficulty of finding a church home where we truly feel at home.

So we went to [name of church withheld] this morning, which is only about 20 or 25 minutes from home, so the drive was nice -- much shorter than the trip to Terre Haute. At first, it was overwhelming. They have services at 8am, 9:30 and 11am. This means that when you're going in for either the second or third service, the attendees of the prior service are on their way out at the same time. This is chaos. And being that it was our first time at a new church, we didn't quite know where to go. Having people going in all directions just added to the confusion.

We made our way into the church and found a sign that said “NURSERY.” Needing to drop the kids off at the children's ministry, we stopped at the Nursery desk. “We've never been here before,” I said. The response was far from enthusiastic. At first, there seemed to be no response. My wife looked at me and smiled out of discomfort with the situation. Finally, the woman at the desk began to ask the ages of our children and told us what to do and where they were to be taken. We signed our daughter in, dropped her off and picked up a pager that would go off if they needed us for some reason.

We then took our son to the Preschool desk. There was no one at this desk at all, so we entered the room behind the desk and went to a table that had preprinted names of children who are obviously regular attendees. A man came out and we told him we had never been there before. He was a little nicer than the first and asked how old our son was. When we told him, he directed us across the room to another table, where we went through a ritual similar to that we had been through when we dropped our daughter off. These people were a little nicer than the first.

Then we headed into the sanctuary. People were milling about everywhere, and the sanctuary seemed to be about half empty. At first I thought maybe we had chosen the least attended service of the three. We found a pew (yes, a pew -- we've become accustomed to the theater style seating in our regular church in Terre Haute) toward the rear and took our seats as a countdown timer on the screens ticked down to the start of the service.

Thirty seconds before the timer expired, five people came out onto the stage, accompanied by various instrumentalists donning their respective equipment. The five people were all vocalists. As the five vocalists and the instrumentalists that made up the "Worship Band" begun playing, people began flooding into the sanctuary and taking seats. We assumed that the woman in the center of the five vocalists was the Worship Leader. We turned out to be correct, unfortunately. Every church has one, and she was the one at [name of church withheld] -- the overbearing woman who thinks she has to sing louder, longer, and higher than everyone else so that her voice can be heard above the masses. Of the five vocalists, we never even heard the voices of the two men, though they had microphones in their hands that they appeared to be singing into.

Communion was odd, though the Pastor did say they were going to do it a little differently today. They passed the bread and cup and asked everyone to hold it and take it all together, which we then did silently – presumably because the Pastor had seen the same thing done in the past week in an Uzbeki underground church. Nothing wrong with that, just different from what we've become accustomed to.

After some singing and Communion and offering, the Pastor began his sermon. He spoke about Abraham and how he had obeyed God's command to take his son Isaac and sacrifice him. I actually enjoyed the sermon, and thought that the Pastor did a very good job of relating it on a level that everyone should be able to understand.

After the sermon, the “Worship Band” returned to the stage and began singing – more of the same. At the same time, some people were Baptized. That was an unusual situation, because the only way you could observe the Baptism was to watch it on the big screens. The name(s) of those being Baptized were displayed on the screen, and the silent image of them confessing their faith and being Baptized was displayed. Unless, of course, you crowded around the Baptismal, as many seemed to do, to get a closer look. That, to me, seemed weird. Also, it seemed weird that the act of Baptizing these individuals seemed to be second in importance to the high vibrato wailing of the worship leader and her band.

When it was all over, we picked up the kids and returned to the car. On the trip home, we asked our son if he thought he would want to go back. He said, “No.” Later when asked again, he said the same. I guess it just wasn't the same for any of us as we're used to at Maryland. Why does it have to be so difficult to find a church that feels like home?

We would really love to find something closer to Indy for those Sundays when we don't make the drive to Terre Haute. While I would be okay returning to today's visited church on occasion, if my son -- who really enjoys church -- isn't interested in returning there, we probably won't. We're a family, and while I, as the father, am the spiritual leader of the family, what kind of leader would I be if I forced my family to attend a church where they didn't feel comfortable.

If you have any suggestions, or would like to invite us to visit your church, please let me know. I may mention the experience here, but I would never identify the church, unless the experience was such a moving and inspirational one that I felt the need to share it.

Joe

podsafe music network | ioda promonet | magnatune | airplay direct
ariel publicity | kennedy resource development | populuxe records | indie heaven
miles high productions | iris distribution