Church #4

That's right, in over 3 months we have only made it to our 4th church.  This is abysmal.  On the brighter side, the church today made our short list.  I think we've decided that since we've found 3 churches that we like, we are moving on to the short list.  We didn't make it to 2 of the churches on our original list, but it seems like we'll never be able to make a decision at the rate we're going.  The other two we didn't visit are both nondenominational churches.

Today we visited and EFree church.  I honestly don't know a ton about this type of church.  I think it's similar to the nondenom church we attended in college.  It seems more Baptist in its church structure and some other things than reformed like our previous 2 churches.  I'm not sure how I feel about this.  I was raised Baptist, but have just seen a lot of flaws in the church, but I've seen a lot of good things as well.  It just seems it's always been decided b/w me and Scott that after college we were parting ways with the Baptist church even though we attended the BSU in college.  I'm not really sure I know why this is, but that's what happened.  I'm pretty sure we tried 2 Baptist churches in St. Louis to no avail (they weren't bad--just not for us--mostly older people or really small).  The essential beliefs are the same, so I don't really think it matters.


The church today is geographically undesirable, especially in comparison to the other 2 (even the 2 we haven't visited).  It is about 15-20 min. away.  It has 3 services, but the sanctuary only holds probably 200 people, so it's not a mega church.  The first service is traditional, and then the other 2 are contemporary.  We didn't love the contemporary service.  I think in the Christian culture these days "contemporary" can be read as lingo for praise and worship and sloppy clothes, but I digress on certain peeves.  I don't mind praise and worship as a general rule, if it is done well.  In my experience, it is RARELY done well.  I didn't feel like this church was the worst I've seen, but I would say that is was not the best.  We didn't love the music, but this is an ongoing problem for us as you might remember from previous posts.  There was a bit of variety in how much moving was going on during this time.  I'm very puritanical, and believe less movement is better--though this is strictly preferential.  A little handraising when moved is okay, but seems contrived when a person's hand goes up immediately at the sound of music, and stays up the entire time--read this as my weakness for casting judgment.  It really just makes me uncomfortable.  I can overlook this though if other things are good. 

The sermon was on apologetics.  We both liked it.  It discussed the myths revolving Christianity--Jesus--as the only way to God.  It was very interesting.  I would like to hear again, and see how much expository teaching is done in other sermons.  He did read from the scripture, but didn't break it down all that much. His style was very much that of a good classroom teacher--I liked it.  Everything he said was Biblically sound. 

There were tons of kids in Colin's S.S. class.  They had lots of volunteers, and he seemed to enjoy himself tremendously (which he did at most of the nurseries).  I appreciated that they sent home a handout about what they taught them in class, and how to continue that lesson.  It was Lifeway material (more links to the SBC).  The church has lots of stuff for women's ministry and men's ministry.  Lots of age groups were represented in the 9:30 service we attended.  They have lots of stuff for kids.  They had just had a preschool VBS, an elementary-aged Arts and Sports Camp, and a summer camp thing for older children.  The church seemed friendly.  Scott says this is his favorite so far.  I'm not sure.  It seems to have the best mix of all the things we're looking for, but I just want to make sure that we will be receiving the best teaching.  So we move onto the short list, and will revisit the 3 churches, unless for some reason we decide to try one more next weekend.