Tag Archives: church

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Signal Mountain Bible Church: Sunday Morning with the In-Laws

1 Comment

Church Experience #43 – November 13, 2011

Signal Mountain Bible Church – Signal Mountain, TN

Dun, dun, duhhhhhh……….the In-Laws

It is nearing the end of my year of “churfing” (a.k.a. church-surfing) and there was still one particularly important church that I had not included in my ChurchSurfer visits.  I think you will all agree that it probably would not be fair to visit my parents’ church (for Father’s Day) and leave out my in-laws’ church.  My wife’s parents, Speight and Trudee Overman, and her sister Karen, live on Signal Mountain and are members of Signal Mountain Bible Church.  I have visited there before (of course…gosh!), so this experience was not entirely new to me, but a “must” on my ever-shrinking list of church visits left for 2011 (can you believe it’s almost over?).  Laura and I did not tell them we were showing up…like all the other Sundays this year, we just sort of decided to go and went.  No special preparations or staged theatrics, we just pick a church and go and see what the Lord shows us through our experience.  One of the great things about the church experiences that I have had this year is that I never have expectations.  I may have suppositions about what or how things might happen at certain churches, but I never expect anything to happen a certain way…how could I?  I do not go to these churches regularly and therefore cannot make any presumptuous conclusions.  Why would I do that anyway?  Would that not be saying that God is predictable?  Or even worse, that He is not present and we have become predictable in our churches?  Think about this for a moment…if we are trying to be imitators of Christ, would we honestly be predictable about how we do anything?  It seems to me like the twelve who were closest to Jesus never knew what to expect.  That is why Jesus was always explaining His actions to them.  With unpredictability comes unexpected events, and with unexpected events comes misunderstanding.  If you were not expecting something and it takes you “off guard”, you usually get details wrong and miss the point completely.  Jesus made sure His disciples did not miss the details or the point of anything.  Can you say the same about your church?  Do you go to church each week expecting certain things?  Would you be open to the unexpected?  Do we purposefully create predictable churches out of fear of the unknown or the desire to keep everything “under control”?  Just some good introspective questions that popped into my mind…but now back to the point of this article – Signal Mountain Bible Church.  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ The Well – Hixson First Baptist Church: In Spirit and Truth

8 Comments

Church Experience #39 – October 5, 2011

The Well – Hixson First Baptist Church – Hixson, TN

Facebook, Football, and Church

A weird thing happened late at night on Tuesday (or actually early in the morning on Wednesday) of last week.  Just after midnight I was hanging out at home evaluating what went wrong with my latest fantasy football defeat (after starting the season 2-4 I may get some retribution this week against my wife) and before calling it a night, I took one last glance at Facebook and noticed a new post on the ChurchSurfer Page.  It was from “The Well” and it read, “We would like to invite you to our launch tomorrow night at Hixson First Baptist starting at 6:30. Hope to see you there.”  What are you people thinking?  I only agreed to go to church once a week this year on Sundays (and a Saturday at a Seventh Day Adventist Church).  I never said anything about weekday services.  Gosh!  And why would anyone think that I would be interested in a launch service?  And why would there be a service at a Baptist church called The Well?  And now that I’m interested, why would someone invite me to something without giving me any details like it was some kind of cool mysterious church thing that was going to happen?  OK, OK, you got me!  Not to mention we were planning on going to the Tennessee vs. Georgia game at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville (thanks again for the tickets Chip & Carol) that just so happened to be a Saturday night game and this would prevent me from looking like a zombie in church on Sunday morning after getting home around 2:00 a.m.  And by the way, Jesus is my life, Christianity is my faith, and Tennessee Volunteer football is my religion (I’m pretty sure I just lost a lot of readers with that statement, for multiple reasons).  Now back to The Well…so I got this odd Facebook invitation after midnight on the night before the launch service.  Sounds interesting, don’t you think?  Well, here is how it went…  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Saint Martin of Tours Episcopal Church: All Dogs Go To Heaven?

2 Comments

Church Experience #38 – October 2, 2011

Saint Martin of Tours Episcopal Church – Chattanooga, TN

Bring Out Yer Pets

For this week’s ChurchSurfer visit I took part in a tradition that I never knew existed, probably because I’m not Catholic and I had never been to an Episcopal church before this year.  The tradition I am referring to is the “pet blessing service” that is part of the feast of St. Francis of Assisi that is celebrated by the Catholic church on October 4.  Other denominations, including the Episcopal church, have also adopted the pet blessing service, and if you do a Google search for it you get a ton of results about these services that are held by local churches.  While driving down East Brainerd road last week, my wife Laura and I saw the sign at Saint Martin of Tours Episcopal Church, which spelled out in removable block lettering “ST FRANCIS PET BLESSING – 10 AM WORSHIP – PEOPLE / PETS INVITED”.  Cool!  I had no clue these existed, but I have a nine-year-old dog named Larry (named after my favorite character from the “3 Stooges“) who could probably use a blessing or two.  So we both agreed that we would bring Larry to his very first church service and our first pet blessing service.  We did not really know what to expect (Laura’s first comment was “they allow dogs inside church?”, like there is some kind of Biblical decree forbidding it), but we were excited to see what it was all about, so here’s how it went…

The Great Outdoors   Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Chattanooga Church: Going Medieval on Chattanooga Church(es)

Leave a comment

Church Experience #37 – September 25, 2011

Chattanooga Church – Chattanooga, TN

A Building That Beckons

Some time earlier this year I was Googling and browsing the websites of various churches in Chattanooga and came across Chattanooga Church.  It just so happened that as I clicked through the pages on their website I noticed a blog post from their pastor, Morty Lloyd, that referenced the ChurchSurfer blog.  He had read the newspaper article about ChurchSurfer that appeared in the Chattanooga Times Free Press and used it as an opportunity to challenge his congregation to look at their own church introspectively and think about how they may be perceived by visitors.  I made a mental note about this church (which doesn’t always work so well) and then kept noticing it as I would pass by on Bonnie Oaks Drive.  The Chattanooga Church building is one of those intriguing structures that you just want to go look at because of its unique charm.  It is a small grey stone structure that looks like it belongs among the rolling hills of the Irish countryside or in some quaint little village in rural England.  Instead, Chattanooga Church is paradoxically perched on the left side of the circle driveway that leads into Bonnie Oaks Business Park.  Despite the out-of-place location, the building still invites you to come inside for a closer look, as does the name of the church, which without any denominational tags or descriptive adjectives in the title, leaves you wondering what it is all about.  Full of questions and curiosity, my wife Laura and I decided to give Chattanooga Church a try, and here is how it went…  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Harvest Bible Chapel: A Church Is Born

6 Comments

Church Experience #36 – September 18, 2011

Harvest Bible Chapel – Chattanooga, TN

Despite My Best Efforts

A few months back I spent a day volunteering at J-Fest, which is an all-day Christian music festival put on by the local Christian radio station, J103.  I served at the information booth for Men’s Ministry Network, a local ministry that I am involved with, and during part of the day I thought it would be a good idea to visit the rest of the booths at the festival to get information about other local churches that I might visit this year for the ChurchSurfer blog.  Just a few spaces down from our booth was an energetic group of people representing a yet-to-be-officially-launched church called Harvest Bible Chapel.  I thought it was a little odd that a church that technically did not exist yet (although as Christians we all know that this group of people was already a church) would have a booth at a Christian music festival (which translated means I can’t believe a church would actually be that organized and able to plan ahead, especially one that hasn’t even launched yet…but then again, maybe that’s why they were able to be organized…they weren’t dealing with the craziness of full-on church life yet).  So I gathered some literature from them, which I of course didn’t really look at (limited time), and was invited to an informational “party with the pastors”, which I of course didn’t attend (limited energy), and then I filed a reminder to attend their first real worship service in the back of my mind somewhere (limited capacity) that pretty soon got lost (limited functionality).  I thought it would be a really cool experience to attend the first-ever worship service of a new church, but as you can see, I obviously had all of my excuses in place in case I missed it.  Apparently God had a different plan for me, because despite my best efforts to botch this up, someone (don’t ask who, I’ve already filed that info away) mentioned the launch of Harvest Bible Chapel Chattanooga to me in conversation a whole week in advance of their inaugural worship service of Sunday, September 18, which rattled my forgotten memories of J-Fest back into focus.  I can usually handle remembering something for a week, so I felt confident that I would make it there on Sunday and experience the (public) birth of a church.  Here’s how it went…  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Burks United Methodist Church: The Sermon 10 Years Later

2 Comments

Church Visit #35 – September 11, 2011

Burks United Methodist Church – Hixson, TN

Here I Go Again

So I got to thinking this past week (dangerous, I know) about the fact that I have been to thirty-five different churches in the Chattanooga area this year (well, actually thirty-four in Chattanooga and one in California).  My line of thinking quickly switched from “wow, I’ve visited thirty-five churches this year”, to “wow, I only have fifteen church visits left this year”.  So then I quickly started considering how many churches of each denomination I have been to, what parts of the area I haven’t visited yet, topics that I haven’t covered, experiences that I might have missed…OK stop right there.  As I revisit those thoughts I also realize that I wish I could visit every church in Chattanooga, meet everyone, experience everything, and write about and share it all.  I realize that the process of creating and doing the ChurchSurfer blog this year has opened my heart to an even deeper love for the Lord and for people, and a sincere desire to share His love with everyone I possibly can.  I also realize that simply broadcasting messages about this Love through a blog or from the pulpit or any other means of mass delivery is simply not the way to accomplish that task.  The best way to share God’s love with people is in person.  People will receive your demonstrations of love through serving them much faster than they will receive anything you tell them or write to them.  People change when you walk through it with them, not after you have preached it to them.  In fact, God Himself gave us the best example by showing us that even though it was important to broadcast the Ten Commandments and sacred writings of His Word, ultimately He needed to come in person and show us His love by serving us (John 13:14-15).  He did it in a way that we could replicate and then commanded us to do just that.  As disciples we are called to not only receive His love, but to share it with others and ultimately, prepare others to share it also (2 Timothy 2:2).  I truly believe that I could never accomplish with a blog that is read by thousands of people, anything close to what I could accomplish with only a few people in person.  Jesus discipled twelve men.  There were millions of other people on the earth and yet He chose to pour Himself into twelve men.  It’s because He knew what those twelve men would go on to do.  Here’s a news flash for you…if you are a follower of Jesus then you are called to do the same thing that those twelve men did (Matthew 28:19).  OK, wow…I really didn’t mean to get sidetracked on a sermon, but that may have been a few minutes of Holy Spirit guidance there.  I hope it means something to you.  So now, on to this week’s church visit…  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Redemption Point Church: A Charlie Brown Pentecostal Praise Break

5 Comments

Church Visit #34 – September 4, 2011

Redemption Point Church – Ooltewah, TN

It’s All About the Timing

On multiple occasions this year I have been invited to visit Redemption Point Church in Ooltewah.  I am not sure how or why I have ended up running into so many people who attend there, but it is one of those weird things that keeps popping up over and over.  At one point earlier in the year I visited the Redemption Point website and was intrigued by the “Aspiring to be the most loving church in America” slogan right there on the home page.  At the time I was really focusing on how I was welcomed into the churches that I was visiting and how the people at each church interacted with me.  I thought it would be interesting to see if the people at Redemption Point were doing any better at living out their aspiration to be the most loving church than all the other churches around Chattanooga.  Maybe God knew that would be the wrong reason (or maybe the wrong time) to visit Redemption Point, because it soon slipped my mind and I never felt strongly led to go there…until now.  After having another one of those “chance” encounters…this time with a friend who had been on the same Walk to Emmaus that I attended in the Spring, who I ran into again at a Chamber of Commerce luncheon recently.  He invited me to visit his church, which just happened to be Redemption Point.  So this time I felt like it was definitely time to go, and after visiting I know why I was supposed to wait until now.  I’ll go over the timing aspect of this church visit a little later, but here’s how the experience went…  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ North Shore Fellowship: Buzz-worthy and Jam-packed

3 Comments

Church Experience #33 – August 28, 2011

North Shore Fellowship – Chattanooga, TN

The Buzz

Certain churches create a buzz around town and just by living in Chattanooga and being active in the local Christian community you tend to hear about them in various conversations.  You usually can’t remember what or where you heard about them, but just that you heard about them (at least that is how it happens to me).  I have visited a few of these buzz-worthy churches…Calvary Chapel, The Net Church, ChristWay Community Church, etc…and have found some very distinct similarities, which may explain why people take notice and talk about them.  They are all growing (which is probably a result of the buzz), they are all full of young people (teens, twenties, and thirties), and they all seem to be making a commitment to teach their congregations that Sunday morning church service should not be the focus or extent of Christianity in your life (the odd thing is that by pushing that paradigm, attendance at their Sunday morning services is exploding).  This week I decided to visit another one of those buzz-worthy churches that I have heard something about from someone somewhere…North Shore Fellowship.  Anyone in Chattanooga knows that the North Shore is one of the most buzz-worthy locations in town right now, so it only makes sense that a church in that area would be making a surge in attendance (sort of like St. Elmo/Calvary Chapel).  So Laura and I decided to see what the buzz was all about.

In the Wrong Place at the Right Time 

North Shore Fellowship - The wrong building
North Shore Fellowship - The wrong building

   Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Hephzibah Ministries: In Tune with the Spiritual

2 Comments

Church Experience #32 – August 21, 2011

Hephzibah Ministries – Chattanooga, TN

Starting with a Sermon

In the midst of attending fifty different churches in 2011, I have also gone through daily and weekly personal reflection in an attempt to evaluate my walk in faith to live for my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I have been intentional this year, more so than I ever have before, to focus on the eternal rather than the here and now.  That is not to say that my present circumstances and actions are not important, but my hope is that I can think eternally in order to act immediately (wow, I like that…that may be my new catch phrase, “think eternally in order to act immediately”).  I want to spend as much of my time, energy, and resources as I can investing in things that will enrich the lives of those around me rather than doing things that we, as Americans, often end up consumed by such as entertaining ourselves, trying to gain wealth, buying new toys, and chasing notoriety.  I have faith that I will share in the inheritance of eternal life in the Kingdom of God, so earthly pursuits of luxury and comfort serve only as a distraction to what is to come next.  I have recently read two books that have helped me along in my personal reflections and eternal focus – “The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven“, by Kevin and Alex Malarkey, and “Radical:  Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream“, by David Platt.  These books have helped me to pay more attention to the reality of unseen forces at work in the world around us and how the forces of darkness are intertwined with the urges that drive us toward the pursuits of luxury and comfort.  I have always had a sense of how American churches have fallen so easily into the snare of these fleshly pursuits and have never felt fully comfortable connecting my spiritual life to one of them for fear that I would also begin feeding into the problem.  The truth of the matter is that we are the Church.  An amazing and humbling realization is that as the Church, we are the bride of Christ.  We are united with Christ as one, and with this blessing comes responsibility.  We are called to represent Christ to this world in order to bring glory and honor to Him as Head of the Church and to invite all who will believe in Jesus to come into the same covenant that we have entered into.  So the question is…how well are we representing our Lord?  Can the world see that we are different?  Can they see Christ in us or do we look just like them?  Let me get away from this mini-sermon and move on to the church visit I had this week and you might be able to make some connections.  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ ChristWay Community Church: A Healthy Tree Is a Fruity Tree

4 Comments

Church Experience #31 – August 14, 2011

ChristWay Community Church – Ooltewah, TN

A Gang of Six

For about the past two or three months we have been attempting to visit ChristWay Community Church in Ooltewah.  The problem with visiting this church is that we have multiple friends who we have been trying to coordinate with so that we can all attend on the same Sunday.  We all know how easy it is to coordinate multiple families’ schedules to be at the same place at the same time during the summer with vacations, weddings, some having to work on weekends, and other obligations…it is about as easy as herding cats.  So eventually we just gave up and decided that this would be the week we visited there (otherwise we may have never made it) and whoever else could attend with us would just be a bonus.  Our friend Michael had just worked a 24-hour shift and was getting off work at 7 a.m. Sunday morning, so unfortunately he was out, but his wife Shannon and their two children, Lydia (4) and Eli (2), were able to make it, as was our friend Carol.  We agreed to go to the early service, which began at 9 a.m. (better for the kids), and so we all planned on meeting up before the service so that we could sit together.  Two weeks ago we had brought a guest with us to Rock Point Community Church, and we have visited a few churches where we had either been invited by or knew people who attended there, but I believe that this was the first week where we were meeting up with other first-time visitors to a church.  I am all for any change of routine in my church visits, so I was excited that this week would have some extra dimension to it and some new “characters” for the ChurchSurfer blog.  Instead of just me and Laura, there would be a gang of six first time visitors descending upon the unsuspecting souls of ChristWay Community Church, so this should really put them to the test.  Here’s how it went…  Read more...