Yesterday's Trip to "Church"

Yesterday we decided to go to a church recommended to us by a friend. She attended there a few years ago when she first moved to Fort Worth and enjoyed it. We found out they had a campas relatively near to our home, so we decided to try it out. This church had small groups instead of sunday school, which is similar to how things worked at Crosspoint (our church in Starkville). We thought it might be a good fit for us...boy were we wrong! We get there and park. Immediately when you step out of the car, your ears are flooded with the Batman music. I had read online that they were beginning a series called "At the Movies", so I was thinking okay, we are going to relate to the Batman movies this morning...that is okay. Then we walk in the door and immediately appear to be in a movie theater. I am not kidding. There were movie posters, a concession stand complete with snacks and drinks for 50 cents, and we were even given our "movie ticket" (a.k.a. bulletin) at the door. PLUS...how could I forget...FREE POPCORN! YES...we are still at church! I am thinking...this would never happen at Fairview...we can't even take a bottle of water into the Sanctuary. ANYWAYS...my thoughts are immediately..what a waste of money. How many hungry children could we feed and clothe for the money spent on this. Despite my immediate reservations, we stayed for the service. OH DONT LET ME FORGET....We are the ABSOLUTE ONLY people dressed in traditional church attire. So it is QUITE obvious to EVERYONE that we are the new kids on the block. I have no problem with dressing casually for church...I just want to be informed when I am going to such church so I don't stick out like a sore thumb. Pressing on...so we move into the Worship center which is set up much like a youth room. Stage up front, rows of chairs, projection stuff. Then we have worship...which is very contemporary...kinda felt like I was at Student Life Conference in high school. All of this is well and good...then we get to the "sermon". I mentioned that this was a satellite church...meaning the pastor doesn't actually speak there in person...we watch him by video. This week...we watched JAWS. I AM NOT KIDDING! Granted we didn't watch the whole movie....but enough of it to get the jist of the plot. He briefly....VERY BRIEFLY...spoke about fear and overcoming our fears. The only time a scripture was mentioned was at the very end when he put a verse up on the screen. I felt like I had gone to 4 year old Sunday School. I had my snack, sang a song, watched a video, and learned not to be afraid, God is with me. DON'T GET ME WRONG...That is an excellent lesson that I need to apply to my life quite often, he just didn't base his delivery on scripture...he based it on JAWS!!! I can almost see where he is coming from...this sort of thing probably appeals to the unchurched...people who have never been to church. And you don't want to get too confusingly deep in scripture and scare them away. BUT AT THE SAME TIME....God's word is LIVING AND ACTIVE...it can not return to you VOID....so my thinking is...USE IT! He never one presented the plan of salvation and didn't even give an invitation to accept Christ as your Savior. Anyways, after the service, Michael and I quietly and quickly walked to the car...got a few blocks down the road...then he looks at me and says, "So....I guess that's a big NO!?!" I laughed and said yes. My sweet dear Michael. I love him.

We also went to the Stockyards with Kristy and Deanna...I will post about that later.