Church on the Road

When we launched out on our great adventure back in January we committed to try to go to church on Sunday while we're on the road as often as practicable. We have done pretty well overall and the variety of churches and worship experiences has been incredible, stretching, and in a way humbling. Here are some of the highlights...

• A church plant in Greensboro, NC with a loud rock style worship band. The church is focused on providing a place where young college and career kids can experience Christ and providing a save environment where they can find authentic relationships. We were given an option of ear plugs during the worship time and the speaker invited the audience to text him with questions about the sermon. At the end he answered the questions people had texted him during the service!

• Several chapel type church services at a Thousand Trails (TT) campground near Orlando, FL. An entire family put on the service. Mom played piano, 2 daughters and son played violins, and Dad preached. They are the regular minsters at this chapel all year as best we could tell. It was very plain, but very effective. Hymns were sung, the Word was preached, the Gospel presented, and Christ celebrated. What surprised us was the 200 plus snowbirds who packed the place out!

• A Saturday night service at a mega-church in Miami, FL. We were one of 7 services held over the weekend. The service we attended was satellited to 6 other locations. We passed the cappuccino/coffee bar on the way in and sat somewhere in a sloped floor sanctuary (?) that probably seats 2000. The worship band started up a little early with stage-fog coming up from the floor then led us in a loud pump-you up yet very worshipful set of praise songs. The sermon was simple, but well done. The announcements were all very professionally done video clips, one reported on huge church outreach to the poor of Miami that had been held a few weeks before. Somewhere in all that I picked up the fact that the church had given one million dollars to missions the year before!

• A very traditional service at a very traditional church in Lebanon, PA, just down the road from our TT campground. Very friendly people. 3 hymns and a 3 point sermon...very traditional, but well done. Several people introduced themselves and asked us about ourselves. We found out that the church actually leads a Sunday Service at our campground!

• A contemporary service in Ohio where the congregation seemed to be mostly young families. No one spoke to us, but God did. The pastor preached from Isaiah 1 and God really spoke to us through his message. There was a man, probably in his 40's sitting in front of us by himself. I couldn't help but notice as we were standing and singing that he had a bald spot on the crown of his head where he had a tattoo of a man pushing a lawnmower! I pointed it out to Joy and used it as a conversation starter as the service broke up. He too was visiting. I asked him if he as a Christian and he said, "I'm Methodist". We encouraged him as we could and then spoke briefly to the pastor who took the time to pray with us over something we had shared with him.
  

• A church in Hot Springs, AR, where our friend pastors. Wonderful worship and a great message from one of several teaching pastors with a very practical and somewhat surprising application. We celebrated communion for the first time since we left VA and enjoyed a very worshipful experience in the particular way they celebrate the Lord's Supper.

• A church in Del Rio, TX which we visited with Katie, CJ and Kylan where the loud praise band had some help from some hopping, dancing, hand waving young people in front. It was a very charismatic service with a good message and the preacher interrupting himself every minute with a "can I get an Amen?" He handled the Word well using a text from Haggai which really spoke to us. Not a church we would be at home at if we lived there, but we met God that Sunday and that's as much as you can ask anywhere.
  

The humbling part is that it really should not be surprising that as believers in Christ we can worship in all these different settings, formats, and denominations. Why? Because of this magnificent truth from God's Word:

"There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all." (Eph 4:4-6)