Church Tryouts Week 1

CHURCH "A"

Let the search for a new church begin! My husband and I are looking forward to finding a new church here in Columbus and getting "plugged in" as the saying goes. It's kind of exciting checking out new churches. I feel like a judge on American Idol or something, "I'm sorry, your journey ends here." :( or "YOU'RE GOING TO HOLLYWOOD!" I think everyone enjoys critiquing. This Sunday we began visiting churches. Today we tried out a church, we'll call it Church "A". It was quite GRAND. The parking lot looked like a mall parking lot it was so intimidating! We walked through an actual Noah's Ark to get to Kaley's classroom, so cute. We dropped her off at the "playground" which was a GIANT Monkey Joe's type indoor playplace. I mean, it would make a Mcdonalds playground cry. This place was a kids fantasy! They gave us a beeper so we could be reached in case of an emergency, and if you are a regular they identify you by a picture in the computer before they let you pick up your kid. Very impressive and safe. The welcoming committee could have been a little more welcoming and warm. They looked a bit frozen in the face and lost themselves. Another highlight, for me anyways, was the nursing room for breastfeeding mothers. Very comfy and convenient. They called it, the nursing suite. Oooo. Outside the sanctuary they had a nice bookstore and a Starbucks like coffee shop you can grab some coffee in before the service. The sanctuary was large but not too overwhelming. The seats were movie theater style seats and quite comfy. There were movie set type video cameras passing over the crowd to get perfect shots of the pastor preaching. We went to the 9:30 service and the sanctuary was only half full. The crowd was mostly old couples and the pastor even made a comment about how the 11:00 service was crowded and the people were young and liked to be in and out. We missed the praise and worship time because we were getting Kaley checked in and trying to find the sanctuary, so the pastor began speaking right after we found our seats. He was quite impressionable. His message was, to be honest, about how humble and generous he was. He claimed to have never once in his life experienced the feeling of jealousy and he thinks this is because he is such a generous guy (or so everyone says). He told stories about greedy people he had been out with who didn't tip well or who took advantage of discounts. "... and that my friends is why I played like Tiger Woods that day (at the private golf club he is a member to) because I didn't take advantage of the minister discount they offer. I generously give back (to my private golf club)." He said he would try not to boast but kind of ended up boasting about how he just gave his largest tithe ever, well 3rd largest he corrected himself, to the church this month. I understand the message he was trying to deliver but it just was not coming across the right way at all. He spent most of the time talking about himself and what a good person he was. My husband and I didn't say a word about our impression of the pastor until after we got in the car, but we were both thinking the exact same thing. Cam (our old pastor) would have never come across like that. The whole church gave off this rich, upscale vibe. From the people that filled it's seats to the luxurious bathrooms, it just seemed a bit over the top. My husband doesn't want to go back. I think he thought that the pastor sounded pretentious, it rubbed him the wrong way. I am sure this pastor is a good guy and he did have a good message about generosity however, we did not get a very good first impression. As nice as this church was, I don't think it's the right fit for us. It's strange because the church we came from is actually bigger than this church, but my old church doesn't come across as ostentatious. Now that we are looking at other churches I can actually appreciate how modest they are in their success as a church. So anyway, we move on. I already have another church in mind for next week, so we'll give that one a try. Our plan is to check out a couple different churches, even if we find one we like, and then decide on one. For now we will check this one off the list.