My family and I did something a little different yesterday. We decided to go visit a church that is different from what we are used to. Wendy has a friend that invited us to come with her and her kids to Trinity Fellowship. For those who do not know, Trinity just finished a huge building project. They have an up to date facility. The sanctuary is unreal. It seats like maybe 5000 people? It is awesome, let me just say that. When we first got there, I was totally blown away by the size, look, feel of the whole place. The praise team was playing. Drums, guitars, keyboards...all things I like, but not use to seeing and hearing in a church. This ol' Church of Christ boy has experienced instrumental music before in a church, but this was different. It wasn't so loud you couldn't hear yourself think. It was honestly at a perfect volume level. Now, I am going to have to confess something. You old Church of Christ people better sit down for this. I really enjoy the instruments in worship. Always have. I have been at some places were the music was too loud and it for sure took away from the music and praise. This Sunday it did not. It actually was a nice addition to the whole worship experience. I may get run out of town for admitting that...but it is just the way it is. I actually hate that I have to write this next sentence down, but here goes. I am in no way saying we should add instruments to a Church of Christ service. There it is. I love the traditions that our brothers left us, and have no intention of trying to change them. The point of this blog is this. We all talked about our experience in the car going to eat and while we ate. We were all stunned by the magnitude of the morning. But in the end, we all had the same conclusion. We do not know if it was the fact we didn't know anyone there to be distracted by, or the difference of worship that had our attention, or what it was, but we all had an emotional experience with our God. The same God we worship every Sunday morning, every day. The same God that Moses worshipped, that Daniel prayed to, that Paul fiercely followed. The people at Trinity were very friendly, and open. We enjoyed our experience. We will be back to our church next week, with a new look on our worship. Not in a bad way, understand, in this way. We will be more focused, not looking to see if so and so is sitting in their pew. We will be there looking to glorify the one who takes care of us and loves us unconditionally. I guess sometimes it just takes a little different jolt to get us out of our comfort zone and a new experience to get us to realize that. We love our brothers and sisters at Southwest, and I for one am excited about next week walking in to church to worship my God with my friends and family.
To Doyle....I can't remember if you get this or not. This is for you. This blog is not in any way, shape or form a bash on our worship time at church. Our time at church is bar none the best. It was really just a funk we had gotten into. Love you bro.
Till next time......
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2 comments:
I worshipped with an instrumental church for 3 years (Little Rock Church, where I was the Outreach Minister). Now I'm at an Acapella church. A few years before that, I taught at Faith Christian School in Little Rock, which is charismatic (not really my thing.) Every Christmas Eve and during Holy Week, we go to an Episcopal church in town. I love the liturgy of the Episcopal church. Sometimes I've been to a Greek/Russian Orthodox church. Now THAT IS different--In the words of George Castanza, "I like their hats."
My experience convinces me that we can learn a lot about God from different Christian faith traditions. I'm solidly rooted in the Restoration Movement and that's where I'll stay and serve. But my wife and I decided a few years ago that we would not limit our learning and experience to any one tradition/movement/denomination (whatever you want to call it).
I still say that the CoC has the best singing and potlucks. More importantly, I think our hermeneutic (interpretive approach to Scripture) is solid, but not perfect (none is).
Thanks for the post, Curt!
- Cousin Jon
Am I the only one who posts comments on this thing?
- Cousin Jon
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