Shopping for a new Church, Week 2

We've stuck with the Baptist theme and visited the Nashua Baptist Church this past week. From outside appearances, it looked like a growing, thriving congregation. Their sign was nice, their building was large, and there had always seemed to be a lot of cars in the parking lot during past drive-by's.

Boy, were we wrong. The sanctuary was small. The people were MIA. And the energy was lacking. Compared to my initial expectation, I was shocked. As progressive as the church was from our previous week's visit, this church seemed just the opposite. The mood was very solemn and, dare I say, tired.

Strangely, however, even as an organ droned on, we were treated to the latest in church-necessitated gadgetry, a projector. The announcements, songs, and sermon were flashed up on the screen in an odd match of technology and tradition. The sanctuary was well-lit, overly so, probably to compensate for the absence of natural light. It felt confining without windows.

The church is looking for a pastor, still, as I think it's been at least a year. They were calling a church meeting soon to talk about the "direction of the church" - not usually a good sign. It felt like most of the fifty people in attendance greeted us. They seemed like they knew it was the right thing to do to help keep their church alive.

I really enjoyed the interim pastor's sermon. I'm glad we went. Overall, we enjoyed it. I'd like to revisit them one or two more times to get a better sense of whether or not my judgment is accurate.

Shopping for a Church

Shopping for a new church, Week 1.

I don't know how long this series will have the opportunity to run, but I would like to make it a weekly feature, in recounting my family's adventures in searching for a new church.

We have dozens of churches to choose from if we would like to attend each one to get a feel for what's out there. I doubt we will, but I've always wanted to take some time and explore what others are doing. So this will be my best opportunity for that. We will probably just sort through them, pick a handful, and then go pay them a visit each Sunday.

The hunt started the first Sunday of this new year, January 7. We headed off to a Baptist church just a few blocks away from our house. In nice weather, we could walk there. It is the Trinity Baptist Church.

It was a nice church. And the people seemed ok. It was an average evangelical church for today. There was a lot of activity, and a lot of people. They seemed friendly enough. A few people greeted us, which was a pleasant surprise. They were very organized and professional.

The service was like any other contemporary service these days. They had their song leaders and musicians. They had their slow and fast choruses. They had their Powerpoint and flashy gizmos. They had prayer, offering, and even a moment of communion tacked on to the end of their service. Their communion wafers looked to me like somebody took a hammer to a bag of crackers and threw them on the plate. It was the smallest crumb of communion bread I've ever had.

The pastor's preaching was quite monotone and conversational. It was far from "preachy." He was speaking on "Building Healthy Relationships." This first week in the series was on communication. He had some good points, but I listened for him to talk about God's work in our lives and didn't find much. Basically, his message was bookended with the mention of God. His application was a stereotypically lame obligatory tag at the end. "Go home, and think about this. Try to put one of these principles into practice until it becomes a part of your life." The sermon was more like a seminar at a self-help convention.

This phenomenon is not isolated to them, though. Our services these days are more like seminars because of the outline provided in the bulletin to mindlessly follow along with and fill in; there is a PowerPoint presentation to go along with every point and Scripture reference; and then there is the "better living" theme in the message. You could have easily taken out of the sermon any mention of God and used it for any group of people.

I don't feel drawn to or lead to this church, unfortunately. I was hoping for it to be a good fit because it is so close to home. But we'll see. This was still only our first attempt.