Visiting the cousins

I often have this idea that I would like to "visit the cousins," meaning visit other churches. For a long time I felt that there was no church but The One True Church of NCF ^TM, so why would I visit another? Over the years, though, I have come to realize that there are different bodies and different expressions for different people, and there is a lot to learn and enjoy from these other expressions. Then, there was the period of time a few years ago when I was on worship team every Sunday, and had such difficulty struggling to my own church that the last thing I wanted to do was spend the effort to go to another one. I sometimes visit churches while on vacation out of town, but I have often been disappointed with the experience. I don't have a problem with traditional, hymn-based worship, but I do have a problem with it being perfunctory and merely something to break up the time between the weekly confession and the sermon. So, I haven't really visited many churches recently.

Well, last week I drove past Pike Creek Bible Church, and saw that they had an 8:30 service. Perfect - I can visit this place early, then go to the Barn, I thought. So that is what I and my bride did yesterday.

First, this place is beautiful. They meet in a pretty building nestled back against a woods of mature trees. I think that the woods belongs to the state park, because I saw a group of bicyclists in the parking lot that looked like they were ready to start a ride on the trail.

In the parking lot we were greeted by a kindly older gentleman who wondered to us if he had ever met us before. He hadn't, so we introduced ourselves. He cheerily escorted us to his wife inside, who seemed to be the "official" greeter. Later, midway through worship they had a time of greeting, and several people made the effort to shake our hands and say hi to us. We felt very welcome.

The worship center (I think that is what they called the room) was a large room, wider than deep, which allowed the seating to be arranged so that everyone was fairly close to the stage. It was lit by electric chandeliers. Carpeted floor and nice cushy chairs. At the front of the room was a large window that looked out on the trees, which I much appreciated. They had an overhead projector and screen for the words of the songs, and for the speaker's PowerPoint presentation. They had roped off one section of chairs, and the rest of the chairs were fairly full. I think that there were at least 200 people in the room.

They started with worship. Most of the songs were familiar - one of them was How Great is Our God by Chris Tomlin. Worship was somewhat subdued - no lifting hands or spontaneous shouts here - but, for the worship team at least, heartfelt. I felt that I needed to be careful to not lift my hands during worship or get too demonstrative. I don't feel that it is right to challenge or distract other people in worship when I am not committed to the fellowship, but constraining myself this way wasn't too hard. My only real frustration concerning the worship is that they paused worship about every two songs with activities such as greeting each other, announcements, etc. I like worship to be in a block; I think it allows the worship to have continuity and sweep. They ended the worship time with a familiar hymn, which I got to belt out despite it being pitched too low for me.

The worship team was made up of a male leader who played acoustic guitar and sang, a keyboardist, a bass player, I think two electric guitars, two female backup singers, and a poor drummer completely enclosed in a transparent cage. I keyed in on one of the female singers - she looked like she was truly enjoying herself, and even lifted her hand at one point. The male lead was also all smiles and joyful, but he was out of my line of sight for most of the service due to the rather tall man who stood in front of me. The worship leader had an interesting doohickey on - it looked like he had a tube microphone over one ear, and an earpiece in the opposite ear. I didn't see any other type of monitor, and I didn't notice if the other singers had any. I thought that the sound was very good and well mixed. The worship leader shared about some very tough times that he has gone through this summer that showed that he has definitely been living his faith and not just singing about it. He seemed like a really nice guy, and I would have been glad to get together and spend some time with him.

I thought about Jess getting nice comments on her voice when she last went to church, and when we initially found seats (three-quarters of the way back in the middle) there was an empty row in front of us. Good, I thought, I don't have to think about singing for the person in front of me, which is a constant struggle of mine. Then midway through the service Mr. Tall - I actually know his real name, it was printed on his Bible - and his family took the seats in front of us. He didn't end up telling me that I sing like an angel, though. :-(

The church is apparently having a missions summer, so the teaching was by the leader of the Sunday Breakfast Mission in Wilmington. This men's shelter seems like it is doing a lot of good things. They shelter only men, but they serve meals to anyone and they have a thrift store and career counseling. They will soon be breaking ground on a center where homeless families can stay together. Currently, a homeless family that seeks shelter is broken up - the men stay in one shelter, the women and children in another, and any boys over 16 stay at a third place. The speaker also talked about addiction, and its similarity to sin in general. It was a good talk, if hard to hear in some places. Not, because, you know, the sound went off or anything, but because it dealt with hard things. Like the tragic story of the guy who ruined his life over crack cocaine - he was introduced to it at a party in Wilmington and subsequently went through all his money and possessions in pursuit of it. About a month later he ended up at the shelter with no money and no job.

After the service they have coffee and adult Sunday School. Unfortunately, we had to skip out to get to the Barn. According to their announcements and their web site, they also have many programs for discipleship and Bible Study during the week. In all, it looked like a very active fellowship.

During the service I looked at the worship leader and had the strange thought, "Wouldn't it be great if we were all the time the way we appear to be on Sunday - faithful, joyful, godly?" Then I thought that our hope is that one day we will be.

I will be going back to Pike Creek Bible Church - um, because I left my Bible there. And not just any Bible - my good study Bible. Bummer.