Church Investigation

I learned that one of the ten rules the CIA teaches spies is to Gather Intelligence and that is exactly what we did!
We are trying to find a church we will call home for the duration of our grad school experience! So we went deep undercover, I mean deep.
We found the church on the Internet. We didn’t cast lots or anything or just let the spirit lead us, but we did what your typical SPIRITUAL American does, we went to GOOGLE!
In our Google search, we looked at many church sites and this particular churches website caught our attention. It was one of the most innovative websites I ever saw. And what really caught our attention was their sermon series pages. You actually interacted with the site.
So don’t hate on websites, most Americans read them more then newspapers, books, TV, etc. You name it! This showed me the importance of a great website. Most Americans will judge you on your website, so before they ever hear the pastor preach or even be greeted by a greeter, they will see your website. A website is the church FACE. It better be pretty.
So we got there, one thing we found challenging was the directions and map-quest. We got lost! My wife is my GPS device and she never gets lost, but when signs don’t match up, there is no telling where you end up. I would suggest, like my home church in PA, all churches need directional signs that are close to the church that lead the people through the town to the church. If I wasn’t a follower of Christ, I will be honest, I would have quit the first turn. If anybody is listening to this, make sure you put signs out and about. And my wife thought of driving through the town, finding all possible entrances and writing out detailed directions with road marks (women don’t do north, south, east, west) they do turn at this store or that hair place, so land markers will work great. I put this down on my list of things I am going to do for the future church plant.
This church was from the mainline denom’s but missional in function. It was a smaller church less then 100, but the pastor said, the church has doubled in the last couple months. The church met in a school auditorium. It was a younger crowd. A couple seminary students.
Putting the church in context with their denomination, the worship was contemporary but not in terms of what I’m use to. At my church in PA, we have a full band that leads worship with drums, guitars, bass, a couple singers, but today they had one guy with one guitar. Don’t get me wrong, he did a great job. So this caught us off guard.
Something that I loved was when they took the offering. Everyone who gave walked to the front and placed their tithe and offering in a basket and at the same time it was a meet and greet for the church to connect for a couple minutes with each-other. The only thing is he didn’t give us any time to think, he announced and everybody did their thing. Liz and I, were caught off guard for a moment, but we met a really cool couple from New Hampshire.
That spoke to me a lot. This couple was from another state, over an hour away, and they drove all that way to come to this little church. I wrote down in church “If you church is on fire for God, people will come from miles away to watch it burn.”
The sermon wasn’t preached by the pastor but a grad student. Wish I heard him.
The pastor then led the church in communion, but I like how he did it. The one man show (worship leader) led us in a song, and people went up when they were ready, after they spent a moment with God, then brought the elements (bread and wine) back to their seat. Li z and I went up. After everyone were back in their seats. The lead pastor led us with no notes in the scriptures with his own little twist on it. He did a great job.
Following the service, I was stacking stairs, helping tear down, as Liz was standing by herself, the lead pastor introduced himself to her, he said, I haven’t seen you here before, and then I came over and we all talked. He was extremely nice, he shared his heart on being a pastor and his testimony, he then asked the million dollar question, what are you doing after grad school, so I let him have it! Church planting! I shared a little of my heart and vision.
We ended by him telling us go to as many churches as you can, if you want, we would love to have you!

So till next week.