Church Visits

Many of you know, for the past two weeks I have gone to several different services. I have a lot of friends at a lot of different churches, and there were a few that I hadn't tried out, yet, so I wanted to take some time to try some out.

What I found is that people get very very defensive of their churches, or other peoples' churches, for that matter. And not always for good reasons. Whenever I meet someone, I try to evaluate what they're looking for. Do you want contemporary or traditional? Why are you looking? What exactly are you looking for? Where do you live?

Then, I try to pair them up with a church (or several churches) near where they live.

So, after evaluating several different churches, I am going to tell you exactly when NOT to go to these churches, starting with my own, Good Shepherd:

• Good Shepherd (regular service, Sunday mornings): Do NOT go to this church if you aren't looking to go further in your walk. This church practices a philosophy to find one ministry within the church to feed you, one in which you can serve. Also, do NOT go to this church if you DON'T want a relationship with the people you are going to church with. This church offers so many ministries, small groups, and outreach opportunities, you are bound to meet new people within the church, and bond tightly with them. Do NOT go to this church if you don't want to learn more about the Bible. There is an in-house "seminary" where you take any where from the basics of the Bible A to Z to going further in the books of Revelation and Romans.
• Good Shepherd (Thrive, Saturday nights): Do NOT go to this service if you don't want to spend time with God. There is plenty of time and chance to both "rock out" and spend time really deep in prayer. Prayer stations are set along the wall where staff will come pray with you (or, you can give them the stiff arm like I always do!)
• Steele Creek Church: Do NOT go to this service if you hate other cultures. They put a huge emphasis on both overseas ministries (remember this is the church that "Voices of Sudan" came out of, but there are also way more than a dozen missionaries within that church), but also in ministering specifically to different cultures. They have several on-staff ministers for different cultures specifically. Do NOT go to this church if you do not want to get to know other people on an intimate level. Their homegroup style means that you will be pulled in, loved on, and have an immediate family.
• Arborvitae, Harrison United Methodist Church (Sat. night service): Do NOT go to this service if you are perfect. During the service, you have an opportunity to share your struggles within the community and realize that there are people other than you who have many of the same struggles. Do NOT go to this service if you don't want to spend more time with God. This emerging church is focussed on putting into practice what they preach, in lives upward and outward.
• Elevation Church: Do NOT go to this church if you don't want to rock out. Do NOT go to this church if you don't want to see people on fire for the Lord.
• Forest Hill Church: Do NOT go to this church if you don't want to do a lot of the above. This church not only rocks out (although, they let me on their praise team so obviously they don't have very high standards... just kidding), but makes honest attempts to connect people. The church is huge so you will have to take a little bit of initiative, but if you do, you will definitely be pleased with their LifeGroup philosophy, where groups come together for Bible Study and also do service projects within.

If you haven't figured this out, this is reversse psychology. ;-) I didn't write about all of the Methodist Churches in Charlotte I've been to, but I'll add those in later. :-)