Church Hopping - Part 3

So far, since February, I have blogged about the following churches: a Catholic Church, Beaver Creek Baptist, Bedside Baptist, St. Arthur's Church, Golgotha Baptist, Blackbelt Baptist, Over-Easy Wesleyan, and even returned to Yahoo! Baptist for Good Friday Service. And that's where I left off.

Since then we've gone back to Blackbelt Baptist, Life Area Pentecostal, The Gathering House, and a Reformed Presbyterian church.

Life Area Pentecostal was my first Pentecostal service. It was like going to a rock concert on Sunday morning. The music was good, and tight. The light show was good too. As a Baptist, I tend to worry that people go for the show, for the emotional charge, instead of for worship. It can become about the show when it should be about Christ.

When the pastor got up to speak, you could see the Andy Stanley influence - the way the pastor dressed, spoke, had a bottle of water beside him on the table beside his high stool. I'm surprised he didn't slip into a southern drawl.

The following week, we went to The Gathering House. That's a church that's based out of Southern Ontario, and they have satellite churches set up around other Ontario locations. The satellite churches are in a theatre. They have a live music team there, and a local pastor. They let you bring food and drink into the theatre. The seats are really comfortable.

On the other hand, the morning we went was Mother's Day. Instead of taking time to have a mothers oriented message, or anything special about mothers, they had a status report! "This is how far we've come, and this is where we have yet to go." That was disappointing. They could have had that any other week. We decided to give that church another chance when Bruce got home. That service was much better. It was very culturally relevant.

We also went to a Reformed Presbyterian church. It was different, mainly because they didn't sing modern praise and worship music. They just sang the Psalms using only their voices. No other instruments. At one point we were singing an imprecatory psalm. Pastor Jack elected to not sing the bit about hating people who worship idols.

We also went to McDonald Baptist in Kanata. The pastor there is a Friend of Pastor Jack's. Unfortunately, he wasn't preaching that morning. So I can't comment on the preaching that morning. I have heard that pastor speak at night before. He always gives something to think about. The music at that church is done well. They are missing drums, which is unfortunate. They have some really good musicians on the music team. Drums would really add to it. The people are friendly too.

For the next three weeks Jack is preaching at Blackbelt Baptist. So that's where we'll all be.