Sunday, September 20, 2009

My kingdom for a church...

In my quest to find a church family in Calgary, I have so far visited 2 churches:

Richmond Hill Baptist church : The people were warm and welcoming, and it was very inter-generational...and that's about all I can say in its defense. (besides the free lunch) The worship was rushed, almost apologetic, despite the fact that the musicians were quite good. There was very much an air of "we ought to sing something, so here's a song...once we've gotten through all of it we can sit down again, so bear with us". Not attractive. Did I mention that in the middle of the stage was a table with a mixer and baking ingredients on it? My first thought was something along the lines of , "I wonder how he's going to relate this to the parable of the rich young ruler..."; I have yet to be able to answer that. In the midst of his sermon (which was about being "plugged into God") he made a pie. Seriously. Absolutely unrelated to the sermon. I was severely tempted to turn around to see if this was odd to anyone else in the room...no one seemed to think so. Needless to say, I'm not planning on making that my home.

Church #2 doesn't have a website, a friend of my roommate's asked us last night if we wanted to go try out this pentecostal church with him, so we went. In retrospect, I ought to have researched it myself. =) After missing our bus and walking in the rain, we finally arrived at a tiny, run-down chapel. (warning sign #1) Upon entering, we discovered not only did our arrival triple the amount of Caucasians present, but we increased the number of males by %30 and the number of people under 50 by about that much as well. Basically, the church was about 20 old, Jamaican women in outfits reminiscent of the Ascot scene in "My Fair Lady". After 2 hours of drawling choruses, meandering speeches from the congregation using "Praise the Lord!"/ "O, Jesus!" in the place of typical grammatical end marks, speaking in tongues, convulsing, and all that jazz, we deemed it was socially appropriate for us to leave. We had been hoping to find a ride home, but ended up walking back to school. (around an hour away)

All this to say, pray that I can find a good church home. I'll keep looking.

1 comment:

Craig Sturm said...

Keep plugging. Remember what is important...1) a discernible passion for the glory of God; 2) a discernible passion for the Word of God; 3) a discernible passion for people (both Christians & non-Christians); 4) a need for the gifts you have to offer; vibrant, Christ-centered worship.

BTW...I still think you should call the church you found on the web and see if they'd be willing to come pick you up.

Love you...Dad