Church Search 3

Sunday marked another adventure in our church search. Mimi and I both made it through the church service with only a few tears; which is better than last week when we both cried most of the way through the service.

We met up with some friends at Bay Area Fellowship. BAF is “the” church in Corpus Christi. It’s branded as one of the fastest growing churches in America. Each week thousands upon thousands of people attend to watch a mini rock show and listen to Bil preach. The church has been hugely successful at reaching the lost.

As with Real Life last week, we previously visited this church numerous times. During those times, however, I viewed the church from the eyes of a pastor. “Wow! Wouldn’t it be great to have these facilities? . . . this much money? . . . this much technology?” Now, however, I was looking at the church through the eyes of a Christian needing a church home.

I absolutely love BAF’s commitment to reaching the lost. I wish other churches shared even half of the commitment to saving people from hell. Their willingness to do whatever it takes (short of unbiblical things, of course) is admirable. I love their bravery in saying the hard things and their creativity in saying them in a way that makes them easy to hear.

Bil Cornelius’ preaching is excellent. I’ve heard him preach several times over the past 8 years and each time I’ve been impressed. It is a stupid myth that says mega-churhes are “Christianity light” or “soft on sin”. People who say such things about Bil Cornelius and Bay Area are simply wrong. Time and again I’ve heard him preach hard-hitting sermons that boldly declare the gospel.

His style, like that of many mega-church pastors, is similar to that of Rick Warren: fill-in-the-blank sermons that focus on life-application. Perhaps it’s the life-application emphasis that causes other Christians to think mega-churches aren’t deep enough. It’s true that such sermons don’t delve deeply into the historical, theological, and textual aspects  of a given passage. They do, however, delve deep into helping people live what the passage teaches. Many Christians, I fear, hide behind their “knowledge of the Bible” so they don’t have to honestly deal with the sin in their lives (in my humble – but accurate – opinion).

Granted, I’m not a fill-in-the-blank kind of preacher. I much prefer narrative preaching that focuses more on inspiration than information. But I can’t argue with the effectiveness of Bil’s preaching. Lives are being changed — and that’s got to be pleasing to God.

The music, light show, and stage set-up are all top-notch at BAF. It’s loud and flashy. A friend told me after visiting BAF for the first time that her husband – who didn’t feel comfortable at his previous church and therefore didn’t attend too often — said, “Wow! I love this place. It’s like going to a rock concert.” That style is obviously attractive to non-church goers. I can’t argue with the success of Bay Area. But now that I’m a church-shopper I have to admit that it’s not the style that attracts me. Very few people sang along with the band. Even my kids complained that the music in the children’s classes was too loud. So, if we end up at Bay Area it will be in-spite of the music rather than because of it.

We want lively music. But we want it to be more “worshipful”. I’m not exactly sure what that word means. Was God praised through the music Sunday? Absolutely. Did the music enable us personally to praise him? Not really.

Bay Area might be a good church for us to get lost in. That’s something that has some appeal to us right now. Maybe we can just hide out there for awhile and heal. Of course, we don’t want to stay hidden. So, if we decide to regularly attend BAF we’ll want to volunteer for a ministry and dive into a small group. Fortunately, the church seems to have lots of options for getting involved.

All in all, our visit was a positive experience. It’s one church we’ll definitely want to consider further.

Still, it didn’t feel like home. But I guess it will be a long time until another church feels like home for us.

A Keva Juice Favor

Would you do me a favor?

I’m exploring the possibility of using Twitter for advertising Keva Juice. The idea is that people who follow me on Twitter will receive special promotions, discounts, and free Keva stuff. But before I go public, I would like to see how easy it is for people to sign up, and how effective the ads are.

So here’s the deal. If you’ll sign up by using the instructions below, you’ll receive “exclusive” discounts over the next few weeks that you can use in the store. All I ask is that you let me know about the experience of using Twitter. How easy was it to join? How user-friendly are the ads? How can I improve the experience? Just comment on this blog post or on Twitter.

Thanks for your help.

Here’s how to sign up:

Follow us on twitter to get great keva-lucious & twitter-ific deals.
Two ways to follow:

1. Go to twitter.com/kevajuice and click ‘follow’
-or

2. From your phone, text ‘follow kevajuice’ to 40404

Church Search 2

This morning we visited Real Life Fellowship in Flour Bluff.

Wow. I was impressed.

We visited Real Life several times during the past few years while they were in Corpus Christi. Honestly, each of those visits ended with us feeling underwhelmed. The music was unimpressive, the atmosphere was uninviting, and the messages were average. Each time, we wondered why people would return to the church.

But that was before.

Something has happened to Real Life in their move to Flour Bluff. The parking lot is friendlier, the foyer is outstanding. The children’s play area is the “best I’ve ever been on” according to my exuberant 9 year old. The student and children’s sections look impressive. The book store and cafe are inviting. The greeters are friendly  without being overbearing. The music and graphics during the worship service were well done. And the sermon was powerful, emotional, biblical, and filled with life-lessons.

The crowd seemed to average in the late 20’s or early 30’s. They were engaged in the sermon but were mostly spectators during the song service. We didn’t know most of the music, so we couldn’t sing along either. I fear this will be a problem as we look for a church. We want a church that is outreach focused. This probably means the music will be more like a concert than a worship service.

Of course, Real Life isn’t perfect. And observations from a single visit are not enough for us to make a commitment to join. One negative I saw that will require more examination was something I saw in their worship folder. It was entitled, “Real Life Fellowship Lifesigns”. It read:

At Real Life we measure LifeChange by these four LifeSigns. If you want to grow make these a part of your life. If you are growing they already are.

1. Attend and invite to services.

2. Connect with others by joining a LifeGroup.

3. Volunteer in one of our many exciting Ministry areas.

4. Invest financially in the vision of Real Life Fellowship.

It’s the fourth “LifeSign” that causes me to do a double-take. I understand that an organized church needs money to function and I admire churches that teach their members to give faithfully. But I have to wonder why giving is one of the top four signs of my growth. What about other signs of spiritual maturity such as . . . oh, let’s see. . . prayer, Bible study, holiness, obedience, loving God, etc.? Why do these take a backseat to investing “financially in the vision of Real Life Fellowship”?

Now, to be fair to Real Life, they do something that I think is absolutely wonderful. Instead of passing the collection plate, they have collection boxes near the doors. People aren’t made to feel guilty by not dropping something in the plate as they pass it down the isle. This is great. I would think that this causes people to go out of their way to give rather than giving out of compulsion. Way to go Real Life.

Real Life continues to be high on our list of possibilities. It is large enough for us to sit in the pews and heal for awhile, but small enough for us to get involved when we’re ready. It seems like a place where God is working.

Church Search 1

Tomorrow we begin the search for a new church home. . . Yuck.

This will be the first time Mimi and I have been “church shopping”. Every church we’ve attended since before we were married we attended because I was working there as an intern, a youth minister, or a preacher. Now that we are “just” a family looking for a new church home I am looking at the church from different eyes.

We don’t want to do this. We don’t really have a choice, so there’s no use in crying over it; but we definitely would prefer to stay where we’re comfortable. So, honestly, I dread going to church tomorrow.

Used to, as a preacher, I loved going to new churches. I loved “passing judgment” on everything; including the bulletin, greeters, music, preaching, and more. It was fun to learn from the strengths and weaknesses of other churches.

Now, though, I’m going as a consumer. (I used to preach against viewing church from a consumer mentality, but now I find myself thinking in exactly those terms). What’s in it for my kids? Will I like the music? Will the preacher connect with me? Will the people accept us?

It’s scary.

I’ll let you know how things go.

Swing Your Life For God

My 8 year old daughter and one of her friends wrote their first song. I’m not exactly sure what it means and the theology may be a bit shaky, but I think her heart was in the right place.

We can swing around a pole.

We can swing in the air.

But there’s one kind of swinging we can’t do. But there’s one kind of swinging we can’t.

The swing is swinging your life for God. There’s only one person that can do that and that person is you. Ya, that person is you!