Survey of Denominations: another visit today

Here's where we'll be visiting today, Faith United Methodist, as part of Olga's "Survey of Denominations" course.

The church's motto is, "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors". We'll be attending the contemporary morning service (Olga's choice) where I expect we'll witness evidence of highly feminized church ecclesiology.

I'm especially looking forward to seeing how they accomplish,

"A contemporary praise and worship service with relevant, biblical messages along with upbeat praise and worship music are major components of the warm and relaxed atmosphere. Not to mention the coffee and donuts offered immediately following the service!"

All I've got to say to that is, 'feed them and they will come' (something a Seminary friend of ours said way back when we all were fresh out of Seminary--clearly it's still sad but true).

Worship or Entertainment?

"Much of what passes for worship today is nothing more than lightly baptized entertainment, and therefore is idolatrous. It is idolatry from which serious churches must distance themselves. Our principle must be (with apologies to Luther): 'Let us, therefore, repudiate everything that smacks of entertainment.' "

THAT is what deeply concerns me about the church today, so I was encouraged to read THIS article today posted by Ligonier.

Our oldest daughter and I are still visiting churches as part of her "Survey of Denominations" course, and we've seen the entertainment factor over and over again--not in all churches, but most (one church used concert-esque 'fog' on it's stage prior to the music team's arrival--I resisted the urge to find a cigarette lighter, hold it high and start stomping my feet on the floor). :-)

There's nothing wrong with 'excellence' in what we do, but in many cases we are forcing our assumptions about worship on the church and failing to hold those assumptions up against God's Word--thus offering man-centered worship rather than God-centered, God-honoring worship.

Where's the Preaching of God's Word?

We have purposefully designed Olga's "Survey of Denominations" course to identify and evaluate various facets of present-day 'man-centered' theology and worship. One of those is the diminishing of preaching God's Word--we note the time devoted to every facet of the worship services we attend, and we note the content of every facet to determine the church's focus and emphasis.

"...the pragmatic and “seeker-sensitive” approaches to contemporary worship because they tend to diminish the proper place of preaching and replace it with quasi-spiritual forms of sheer entertainment (music, comedy, drama, and whatnot). Any trend that threatens the centrality of God’s Word in our corporate worship is a dangerous trend." ~John MacArthur (emphasis mine)

I think I might add one of these to our survey...

All Souls Unitarian Church

Hope Unitarian Church

Survey of Denominations - Where We've Been So Far

So far we've visited:

1) Lord willing, we'll be at THIS Presbyterian (EPC) church for the 'traditional' service.

2) And, Sun. evening we'll attend the healing service here, GUTS

3) Trinity Lutheran ~ Missouri Synod (it was so nice to be able to relax and not be on 'high alert' regarding the content of the preaching or the hymns)

4) St. Michael's - Reformed Episcopal (seemed a little more Anglican than we were familiar with when we lived in Dallas)

5) GUTS Church (charismatic in the contemporary 'hip' sense, and heavy into health and wealth)

6) Victory Christian Center (charismatic in the traditional sense, but not heavily health and wealth)


Still to come:

- Presbyterian (USA & PCA)

- Catholic (traditional and contemporary)

- Methodist (traditional and emerging)

- Emergent--if I can actually FIND where they meet besides a bar (our daughter is under 21)

- Anglican (traditional and contemporary)

I Found It ~ A local emergent church not meeting in a bar

Looks like we can add 'emergent' to our Survey of Denominations course! Several weeks ago I noticed a flier posted on the bulletin board of a restaurant where my husband and I enjoy our weekly 'date' every Saturday morning. At the time what caught my attention was the '...we don't have the answers...we're asking the questions...' line of thinking--how emergent is THAT? (Very!!!)