Giving It Another Go

Today we went to an "organized" church service for the first time in about two years.
I haven't written much about spirituality or church or anything like that on this blog. I wasn't going to, but it's a big part of our lives, so here it goes. When we moved to BG five years ago we had just left a great church in Cookeville and were hoping to find a similar thinking and similar functioning one in Bowling Green. After an exhaustive search we ended up settling for a church that had small groups and basically just stuck around because we had met some friends. Some of those friends are still around to this day, so I am thankful for the experience. While the small group went through some changes, and our conflicting beliefs led us away from the first church that we attended, we switched to a bigger and more contemporary church that we tried to plug into. Bryan got more involved than I did and ended up becoming a sound tech while I sat down below all by myself in this huge church of thousands of people feeling lonelier than I think I have ever felt. We tried to connect to people, but it just wasn't working. The music was pretty awesome, the teaching was simpleminded and it worked for a while. Then one day Bryan was asked to come to a newer church in town to run sound there and help them get set up. We switched churches yet again and got involved in this new church only to find that the fakeness and selfish values of the church were too much to handle. All the while, a few of us from the small group from the beginning church (although none of us went to that church anymore) kept meeting. There were just a few couples, but it was enough and our friendships grew. Although we were growing as friends, we grew more and more unhappy with organized church. We wanted to be real. We wanted to grow closer to God. We wanted to grow closer together. We didn't just want to show up somewhere on a Sunday, go through the motions, and call it good. Some of our friends knew of a few others around town that felt the same way and so we started meeting together. We formed our own "relational" church. For the last two years (up until the last few months or so) we met once each week for a Bible study and for some music, and we grew more spiritually and relationally than ever before. Things started to get more complicated with our group with some new people attending, then we switched locations for our meeting place, and finally over time schedules conflicted and we stopped meeting. With no regathering in sight, Bryan and I decided we needed to do something. So we scoured the Internet to find a possible church to attend today. We knew going into it that there would be things that we didn't like, but we were willing to keep an open mind and try to subside our negativity that we tend to have toward most corporate organized churches.
Going to a new church has a lot of unknowns, especially when you throw a kid into the mix. Where were we supposed to go first? Where was the nursery? We ended up heading toward the main building and decided to just ask where to take Seth. A kind lady walked us to the nursery and we checked him in, received a beeper, and then walked to his room only to find no one was there. We waited for a few minutes and the couple taking care of the babies arrived. We quickly explained Seth had already eaten, he had a cloth diaper in his bag (which I am sure they thought was weird), that if needed to put the dirty diaper in a ziploc bag, and he had water and a snack in his bag if he got really fussy. We did not mention that this was the first time we had ever dropped him off with any unknown person or environment. We left our baby boy in a content state (thank goodness) and we headed to the service.
As we were walking into the auditorium, directly beside the coffee bar they had set up, was a sign saying that no food or drinks were allowed in the auditorium "in reverence to the Lord." What's the difference in drinking coffee right outside of the auditorium or inside it? I'm pretty sure that God doesn't care where the heck you drink your coffee.
The music varied greatly from three people singing "praise and worship" songs to an entire choir singing a special hymn, bells being played in some mysterious place that we couldn't see to a really awesome sounding guy playing a guitar and singing a country version of an old hymn. We sang a few old school hymns and then it was time for the sermon. I would like to point out that the pastor came to meet us while we were waiting at the nursery and he came back over to greet us again during their 30 seconds or so of "meet and greet" time during the opening song. While that is his job, and maybe he was just trying to guarantee that we would come back, I was kind of impressed with that.
As for the sermon, it was kind of a stretch to get the points that he was trying to make out of the scripture that he used, but it wasn't the worst sermon in the world by any means.
The service ended by everyone joining hands and us singing a short verse of "I'll Say Yes, Lord, Yes." Super weird for visitors!
We picked up Seth and found out he had only gotten a little fussy the last ten minutes before picking him up (mostly due to a much needed nap). I'd say that wasn't bad for his first experience left with complete strangers.
Generally we are looking to connect with people and better connect with God (spiritually, not religiously). It is really hard to evaluate how well you would connect with people at a church by attending a service on a Sunday morning. Yeah, you are in a big group of people, but the whole thing is set up for you not to really interact with those people. Now we are forced to make a decision whether we are going to go back to this particular church or another based on the way this church's service was organized and the very few people that we encountered during our visit. Could we endure their Sunday morning gatherings if we could meet and connect with these people? Probably, but we sure can't tell from our experience today. So the search will continue...