During the time when we were all reading the subversive materials that Earl Creps (Motto: “With a name like Creps, it’s got to be good.”) recommended to us, we talked at intervals about what we were reading. Finally one day, Pastor Phil said, “You know, I’ve done things this way for almost thirty years. I can’t see me changing everything at this stage of the game. Besides, I love this church and its people. This is home. It’s where I grew up. I just can’t bear the thought of what such a change would do to so many of them.”
I had to agree that it would take a huge paradigm shift and a painful and bloody battle to turn such a big ship at full speed. However, we did think it would be nice to see some different churches and how they operated. Maybe we could tweak things a bit. So, I was given a short sabbatical in the month of June 2004 in order to visit some churches that we thought might be able to teach us something.
I called a couple of friends who are well traveled, told them what we were doing, and asked them where they would recommend that I go. Besides a couple of places locally, we decided to go to three churches: New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Fellowship Church, and Prestonwood Baptist, both in the metro Dallas area. Thus, on two different weekends in June of 2004, my family and I made the trips to Colorado and to Texas to observe and evaluate what we saw and heard.
Now, keep in mind, I was still the associate pastor over music. So, I was primarily going to check out the music programs as well as going to assess the overall church experience. We had very little idea of what to expect. But, each one of the experiences blew our minds.
New Life Church was a well oiled machine. It was big and still growing. They were building their current sanctuary while we were there. The music was great; the preaching was above average. But the two things that impressed me the most were the small group concept and the large umbrella concept under which each of its different congregations operated.
New Life was, at one time, several different congregations meeting at different times with different pastors. Sunday mornings, Sunday nights, Saturday nights, and each of the age group churches (youth, young adults, kids) were given equal standing. And, it seemed, that little care was taken to see that they overlapped each other. Whether or not it was that way behind the scenes, was not clear.
Prestonwood Baptist in Plano, Texas was huge! The sanctuary seated thousands. The choir loft alone seated 350 people. That’s twice the size of the average church. Its gargantuan size alone made it worth seeing. But, here again, I saw the multiplicity of ideas at work.
During the Saturday evening service we attended, under the same roof, but far enough away from the main sanctuary and parking lot, there was a wedding taking place in their “small” 400 seat chapel. Other than our curiosity and our roaming after the service, we would never have known that something so significant was going on in another part of this giant edifice.
Finally, we saw Fellowship Church (just seven miles from Prestonwood) in Grapevine, Texas. (Yes, just across the highway from the huge outlet mall.) Its pastor, Ed Young, is something of a celebrity. He writes books and gets asked to speak all over the place. Not many people start a church and within 10 years have 14,000 people. I have no idea how big it is now.
What I saw there that I took home with me was the relevant teaching and the visual message that the whole experience was. It was the first time I had ever been in a church where the two main speakers sat in big leather chairs and had a conversation in front of the whole crowd. Blew my mind.
When I went back to work after three or four weeks, I had a report prepared, but I wasn’t sure who to give it to. I knew we were never going to go there. So what was I supposed to do with all of this mind-blowing information?
3 comments:
In 2002, I went to Irving Bible Church in Irving Texas, for a short time. I was about to get divorced, and found myself begging for God's peace. The pastor used props to make his point (much as you do), and illustrations. The church was so big that before church they had coffee with the pastor, where you could come early and meet him and talk with him. The worship had interpretive dance, drama teams, and I was struck that the worship team was getting ready to take a breather and go visit other churches to see what they were doing. It was refreshing at a time when I needed to feel connected to God, but was not ready to jump back into the old traditions I was raised in.
Did you ever go to Community Bible Church in San Antonio...at least I think that's where I went two years ago March. It was interesting....I think you've heard me talk about it before.
I was talking with my friend last night at dinner. She's getting married in May and she's very frustrated that her church here in Tulsa, won't name it, is not treating her well. She's tried to meet with her pastor many times, but he always seems to have something going on. She's tried to talk to the church secretary to set up times and confirm the date. And she thought she had it all planned when the secretary told her a couple of days ago that there was someone else that she should now be talking to because she's the "wedding go to person" and this is after weeks of talking to the other girl.
She told me that she's ready to just find someone else to officiate and even find a new church. It stinks. She even told me that yesterday she went up to him before the service, she said "something that you're not supposed to do!" (which I found interesting) to ask him about a meeting time and he said that he had "wrestling matches and other things going on". Her fiance and my friend have only been able to meet with him once.
I guess I said all of this to say thank you for responding the way you did to God's vision which led you to create Agora! I'm glad that we're all a family and that I have the relationships that I do. So thank you and know that we love you! :D
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