undercover

I wont name names, but, I will say that we visited a new church yesterday. What drew me to this church was a front page news paper article that quoted one of the church planters as saying "it’s a come as you are church" and that "it’s a church for people that don’t like church." Of course I thought it strange they would describe themselves like that. So, a little anxious about what we would find, we dressed up in our finest t-shirts, shorts and flip-flops and visited, not revealing who we were or what God has us up to.

This was only the second meeting this church had held. They are holding one meeting a month until September when they will start holding weekly meetings. We arrived at the movie theater about 5 min early and as soon as we walked in the door, we were smothered by greeters. We were encouraged to pick up papers and cards from a table, offered donuts and coffee, given a gift bag with a little candy in a glass cup and more cards in it. We were about to make our way to the auditorium and a guy with a secret service ear piece stopped us and said, "were having sound problems this morning, it’ll be just a minute folks". So we found a corner to stand in as other guests were received. While in the corner, a lady saw her opportunity and came told us all about how she loved babies so, so very much. I normally would think it strange, but, was a little relieved when the guy with ear piece came back and said "alright folks, we’re ready for you" and escorted us into the auditorium. When we sat down in the theater, there was no music, no slide show, no band doing sound checks. It was oh so awkwardly quiet. Then, after a few minutes, a girl with an acoustic guitar got up and sang three songs. I only knew one of them, no words on the HUGE movie screen to sing along with. Then they passed buckets around to collect money. Then the pastor stood up and gave a sermon about God’s laws being written on our hearts and quoted Leviticus and Genesis then asked us to raise our hands if we did not have a relationship with Jesus. Then he said a blessing over us and left the auditorium. Not one personal story or a statement of who they were. No explanation of why they were planting a church here. However, we were informed they would be having a bar-b-q at the park in a couple weeks. We were on our way home in 55 minutes.

Well, what we found was not what we were expecting. However, we are encouraged that there are people that are drawn to the idea of a church for people that don’t like church. There are people that are hungry for God and have little interest in churchy, religious programs. There are a lot of churches that are ready to receive people that have been going to church for a long time. There are NOT many churches that are creating comfortable atmospheres for people far from Jesus and allowing them to belong even before they believe.