Category Archives: Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Bridge Christian Church: Jeans. Coffee. Elementary School. Church?

Church Experience #9 – Feb. 27, 2011

Bridge Christian Church, Chattanooga, TN

Networking for Church

One of the things I enjoy most in life is meeting new people.  In business, I’m an avid networker.  I seek out and get involved in various meetings, groups, organizations, social circles, etc. on a regular basis.  My opinion is that the more people I know or know of, the better.  I feel that in some way, maybe I’m increasing the odds of meeting someone who could make a substantial impact on my life (or I on theirs), that I would otherwise miss if I didn’t get out there and network.  [For all you psychologists out there, maybe that’s why I felt the need to begin the ChurchSurfer project…it’s my spiritual networking.]  This thought of increasing the odds of making a meaningful connection definitely proved to be true in the instance of discovering Bridge Christian Church…had I (and they) not been involved in networking, it may never have happened.  The Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce morning networking events I attend always include “self introduction” time where they pass the microphone around the room so everyone can announce their name and business.  At one event, I heard an introduction from someone followed by a church name…Bridge Christian Church.  I was instantly intrigued.  I had never seen a church come to a business networking event and I knew I needed to meet this person immediately.  It turns out the person was Scottie Blackburn, Community Pastor at Bridge, which is a four month old church.  Cool!  A new angle for a ChurchSurfer article…exploring the beginnings of a baby church.

ChurchSurfer @ Abba’s House: Not Your Mama’s Baptist Church

Church Experience #8 – February 20, 2011

Abba’s House (a.k.a. Central Baptist Church)

Megachurch

So here I am, almost two months into ChurchSurfer and I haven’t been to a “megachurch” yet.  Shame on me.  Having just moved right next to Hixson, TN, I located the closest (there are 50 in Tennessee) mega church, Abba’s House, and decided to visit.  Laura and I showed up about 20 minutes early, as I always like to do, to give us time to explore and hopefully meet a few people to talk to and gain a little insider’s perspective into this church.  As we approached the building we were warmly welcomed by a door greeter, and I was glad to see that there was someone at each of the six or eight doors, not just one or two for the entire entrance.  We walked around the hallway, which seemed shockingly barren for a church of this size…I fully expected to be weaving and bumping shoulders through a massive crowd.  I had skipped my regular Sunday morning coffee stop, anticipating a lavish coffee and refreshment station in a church of this size, and was only slightly disappointed to find out that coffee is served in the small group Bible studies (Lifegroups) in another building.  Had I been faced with a completely caffeine-free church visit, I might have been recognizably fretful, but alas…there was a cafe/bookstore in the lobby where I was able to make a coffee purchase.  Laura and I sipped on our coffee and wandered around the lobby in search of conversation.  I’m not sure how, after being able to engage a few people in pre-church conversation almost every week, this week’s attempt was unfruitful…could be a side effect of a megachurch, or maybe just bad timing.  So I went outside and snapped a couple of photos of the front of the enormously impressive sanctuary building, and then went to the folks at the guest services desk to dig for some information.  It turns out this should have been my initial destination.

ChurchSurfer @ Calvary Chapel: Growing A Church From The Ground

Church Experience #7 – February 13, 2011

Calvary Chapel

Old Friends

After my wife, Laura, and I had been invited by at least 3 or 4 different people to attend Calvary Chapel on Broad Street in Chattanooga, I posted on Facebook that I was planning to attend there and received an immediate encouraging comment from an old friend.  The old friend was one of the Buntin sisters that were both in the Brainerd United Methodist youth group with me back in our high school years.  17 years later and now with the married name, Susan Potter, she informed me that her sister, now Sara Coffman, also attended there, as did our old BUMC youth pastor Bryant Black, who is now head of the history department at Chattanooga Christian School.  There was no way I could miss out on a reunion like this, so I asked Susan to meet Laura and I before the Sunday worship service so that we could sit together, and she reluctantly agreed :).

The Buntin Women
Sara Coffman, Brenda Buntin, Susan Potter

Purely Downtown Chattanooga

ChurchSurfer @ Metro Tab: Super Sunday

Church Experience #6 – February 6, 2011

Metro Tabernacle

No More Sporting Goods

In selecting a church to visit this week I had to take into account that it was Super Bowl Sunday…so naturally I chose Metropolitan Tabernacle (a.k.a. Metro Tab), because it is in a building that began as a sporting goods store.   I was interested to see how this former retail big box store was transitioned into a church on the inside, and what type of church service was held there.  I was assuming that it would be a pretty large congregation, because the building with its colorful banners on the side are highly visible from Highway 153, which is high traffic and prime real estate for advertising.  I guess the only reason the sporting goods store didn’t make it is because of the lack of other supporting retail stores on that particular exit, which is mainly a residential area and much better suited for a church.  After parking the car and stepping out to hold my wife Laura’s hand, I noticed a gentleman immediately zero in on us and begin to head our way.  Apparently this church takes greeting people a step further than most and instead of waiting until you get to the door, they have greeters roaming the parking lot.  I have to say it was very nice to be approached and greeted with a handshake and a warm smile so promptly, and I would imagine these people are also there to give assistance to elderly or to help people find parking spaces once it begins to fill up.  The other thing I like about greeter programs is that in addition to providing a service for the congregation, it also gives people the opportunity to serve, which I’m sure makes them feel good about contributing something and giving back to their church.  We headed on up to the entrance and were again greeted, this time by the traditional front door greeters, who handed us a bulletin with a smile and welcomed us inside.  The lobby was wide open and very spacious, with various “stations” set up with tables and attendants with information for different programs.  There was a coffee shop area off to the side, which I didn’t visit because I had just been to Dunkin’ Donuts and brought my own <insert smile here> so I browsed through each station to see what they were about.  The first table I came to had the general information about the church for visitors, so I picked up a few printed materials and moved on to another station that particularly caught my attention.  The reason for my interest was that I stumbled on what may be the 2nd best small group signup program that I’ve ever seen (take note church administrators).  A few long banquet tables were lined with clipboard signup sheets just below plexi sign holders with each one displaying an information sheet containing the small group name, topic, location, description, and the name and photo of the leader(s).

ChurchSurfer @ Joyful Sound Church of God: Holy Spirit Power

Church Experience #5 – Jan 30, 2011

Joyful Sound Church of God

Lively Up Yourself

It’s the end of my first month on ChurchSurfer and I thought it was about time to take the blog to one of the more…how should I say it…energetic or charismatic denominations – Church of God.  We all know the stereotype that all the variations of Pentecostal have earned over the generations, and I usually recall the movie “The Apostle” with Robert Duvall as the Pentecostal preacher, scenes of the rural South, roadside tent revivals, and sermons that resemble “pep rallies” that evoke the Holy Spirit, usually climaxing with people jumping, shouting, writhing on the ground, and speaking in tongues.  I mention this not because I buy into this stereotype, but because we all know it.  I personally believe most stereotypes of this nature begin with some amount of truth, but you never know how much gets exaggerated and fabricated over time.  So I don’t believe the hype until I experience it for myself…and in this case let’s just say I wasn’t disappointed!  Not that the stereotype was confirmed, but that I discovered where the truth of it began.  So here we go…

Don’t Judge a Book…  

Joyful Sound Church of God

ChurchSurfer @ St. Peter’s Episcopal: Spirituality and History

Church Experience #4 – Jan 23, 2011

St. Peter’s Episcopal Church

It’s Denomination Time

After spending the first few weeks of 2011 attending non-denominational churches, I knew it was time to take ChurchSurfer into the denominational world.  Although I plan on visiting all of the popular denominations sometime this year, I couldn’t see myself going to a Baptist, Methodist, or Presbyterian church this week because that’s what I’ve known for the majority of my life and I really wanted to experience something new.  So I chose an Episcopal Church, because I know very little about that denomination.  It turns out that its a very interesting denomination…the history, the rituals, and the people I met were all very enlightening to me.  One of the ways I feel like I grew this week was in expanding my awareness of church history and the responsibility of carrying on traditions from generation to generation.  So get ready to jump back in time…

Creating an Atmosphere

ChurchSurfer @ New Covenant Fellowship: A Lesson On Love

Church Experience #3 – Jan 16, 2011

New Covenant Fellowship Church

A Place for Every Race

With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day being celebrated the day after this week’s Sunday worship, I decided to choose a church based on the potential for insight into ethnicity and race in American Christianity.  A few weeks ago while browsing different churches online, I ran across New Covenant Fellowship, a Chattanooga church that actually brands itself as a “multi-ethnic” church.  The banner on their website proclaims “A Place 4 Every Race” with multi-color letters of blue, green, yellow, red, and purple.  I found it very interesting that a church would go out of its way to place a label on itself, and knew right then that I needed to go there at some point.  It seems that so many churches these days try to avoid any labels for fear of scaring away potential visitors, and by announcing up front that they are a multi-racial congregation, New Covenant Fellowship definitely risks exactly that.  There are probably still individuals who are very uncomfortable around large groups of people of a different ethnicity, and if you’ve never been to this church before, you have no way of knowing how balanced the representation of each race will be.  I personally could care less about a person’s race.  Other than contributing to your personality, I think race/color/ethnicity has very little consequence elsewhere in our lives.  Racism still exists in today’s world, but my experience has been that it comes from all races, not just one.  I’ve been the victim of racism…I’ve been threatened and called “cracker”, but I know that was the voice of the enemy, not of that race.  I also have lifelong friends from many different races…black, hispanic, asian, european.  People are people…period.  The only people I discriminate against are those who are filled with hate, and even though I choose to love all people, I certainly won’t call racist people my friends.

ChurchSurfer @ The Net Church: Church…the building or the people?

Church Experience #2 – Jan 9, 2011

the Net Church – Chattanooga

No building? No worries!

For my first Chattanooga church experience of 2011 I decided to visit the Net Church that currently meets in the Rave movie theater off I-24 near the Moore Road exit (184).  I decided to visit this church for two reasons: 1) I met the worship leader, MJ, at my company Christmas party back in December (his girlfriend was a newly hired employee) and he spoke passionately about his church, which is always good.  And 2) I was really interested to see what a church that once had a billboard that promoted their website, www.ifyouhatechurch.com, was like (visit their website for an explanation).  I’ve always been curious about the pros and cons of not having a church building.  On one hand, it seems like such a waste for every single church to build another building.  Do we really need that many church buildings?  It seems like the ones we already have don’t even get used that much.  On the other hand, I can see why a congregation would want their own space to hold events whenever they want.  The people at the Net certainly didn’t seem like not having their own building affected them in the least, and they definitely did an excellent job of utilizing the movie theater space effectively.

Church at the movies?

Churchsurfer @ Word of Life Fellowship: Big state, small town, sunny California

Church experience #1 – Dec 31, 2010 / Jan 1, 2011

Can you really call this church?

OK, so my first church experience of 2011 for the churchsurfer blog wasn’t really a typical church service…it was a wedding/worship/New Year’s celebration.  There’s only one church that I’ve ever been to that would not classify an event of this nature as “out of the ordinary” and that happens to be the church that it took place at – Word of Life Fellowship in Mi-Wuk Village, California.  If you’re wondering why someone from Tennessee spent their New Year’s in a church in a tiny mountain town in the Sierra-Nevada’s, it was to see his sister get married (congratulations Simon & Julia).  Even though this event was a wedding and a New Year’s celebration rolled into one, it was still most definitely church.  The Word of Life congregation doesn’t really do anything without “churching things up” (I’ll get into that later), so for the purposes of the churchsurfer blog, I think this will be a relevant starting point.

New school meet old school

One of the more surprising realizations that I have had in my many traverses around the country is how similar places really are.  The communities of Sonora, Twain Harte, and Mi-Wuk Village, California, are eerily similar to the small towns of Abingdon and Damascus, Virginia where I grew up.  What I would (stereotypically)  imagine most churches in California to be – casual, laid back congregations of surfer dudes and chicks – is most definitely not the case at Word of Life.  It has more similarities with 1st Baptist Church of Damascus circa 1985…men always wearing suits and ties, cleanly shaved, well groomed, polite, and the women wearing skirts or dresses, modest and friendly.  The people of Word of Life seem reserved at first introduction, yet their worship is anything but.  I guess this is a great lesson in how outwardly appearance can cause you to completely misjudge things in so many facets of life.  Had I drawn an initial conclusion about Word of Life Fellowship based on appearance I would have been way off base.