Church Visit

OK, in case anyone is really dying to hear my opinion of the church that I visited Sunday morning, here's my take.

It's a small congregation (which you would expect since the church is merely 10 months old). Everyone seemed very friendly, and several people introduced themselves to me before the service started, and remembered Matt from his visit last weekend.

The pastor led the worship, which I understand he's been doing in the absence of a worship leader, and the band was really good. They have an excellent electric guitar player with a bunch of gadgets and pedals, a really good drummer (worth his weight in gold, I'm sure), a bass player that didn't stand out, and a couple of pretty good singers, one guy that led one of the songs (and whom I could help with just a few voice lessons) :) and a chick singer that sings harmonies well, but prefers not to lead songs. The pastor led from the piano. That sounds cheesier than it was. Their band was really good.

The presentation on the screen was worse than bad. It was obviously done in Power Point (we've become spoiled by using Media Shout for the last several years) and whomever was running it really had no idea where the songs were going or what was coming next in the service. It was very distracting, and we rarely had the right words on the screen for several songs that I was completely unfamiliar with.

The worship style was great. I enjoyed the flow of the service was really good, and the freedom in the worship was a nice change of pace. We had several sections of free worship (which meant we didn't have to worry about what was on the screen, just make up our own words), and the elements of the service mostly flowed very nicely from one to another.

The pastor had a really good message, basically challenging Christians to grow up, and it was the final sermon in a 6 week series based on a book that I didn't catch (but Matt did), dividing the spiritual growth process into 6 different levels:

Level 1: Recognition of God: Salvation
Level 2: Discipleship
Level 3: Productive worker in the church
Level 4: Journey Inward, which leads to THE WALL (when questions without answers rock your faith foundation)
Level 5: Journey Outward- healed from your wounds and use those life experiences to give to others.
Level 6: The Life of Love- the place where your priorities are Kingdom-centered. The main characteristics of this stage are

1. Total obedience to God,
2. Wisdom gained from life's struggles
3. Compassionate living for others
4. Detachment from things and stress (wonder when I'll experience this?) where sacrifices in the eyes of the world are no big deal because "stuff" doesn't matter
5. Life underneath or on top: a realization that prestige doesn't determine worth and
6. The Life of Abandon: our needs are secondary to God's Kingdom plans. People at level 6 are hard to understand because they don't do things the "normal" way.

He gave a clear vision for their church to be filled with people at all stages of spiritual growth, ever moving forward. He is clearly visionary, and has a passion for missions and for the lost in a way that I haven't seen in a long time. I appreciated his thoughts on the church not wanting to get stuck in producing a bunch of Level 3 and below Christians, without challenging them to go deeper. I appreciated that his vision was very outward focused and not about growing "our" church, but about growing the kingdom.

I'm not stating this all very well, but it was a very challenging message, and I appreciated it.

Even though this is a Pentecostal, charismatic denomination (Missionary Alliance), I didn't get a sense of any over the top weirdness. I felt like the pastor had a good grip on the balance of an abandoned spiritual life but with both feet firmly planted in the South Dakota soil.

I couldn't stick around very long to chat with anyone afterward, because Matt had to work after church and the kids were over at New Hope having lunch with some friends.

So do we belong there? I think we could fit really well, and it would be a good theological challenge for us, switching denominations. I wouldn't really have an outlet for the atmosphere setting or thematic planning that I've been enjoying being a part of at New Hope, but musically and spiritually it would be a refreshing fit.

So the bottom line is, I don't know. Matt's been really struggling with the idea of where we're supposed to be in ministry, but he's not as deeply involved at New Hope as I am. I am thankful that I don't have to leave my friends, because I've really developed some great relationships over the last year. No matter where we go to church, if we stay in SF, we'll stay in close contact.