Tag Archives: contemporary worship

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Hephzibah Ministries: In Tune with the Spiritual

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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

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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...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Rock Point Community Church: A Very Special Guest

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Church Experience #30 – August 7, 2011

Rock Point Community Church – Chattanooga, TN

Faith Changes Things

(Warning, philosophy ahead – please read this first paragraph slowly)  It is a strange thing how faith changes your life.  When you think about it, how could it not change your life?  Hebrews 11:1 gives us a definition of faith when it tells us, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”  When you have evidence of something that you have not seen, it makes it possible to believe it exists.  Without evidence, that thing is just an idea or concept, but with enough evidence it becomes established as real, or as truth, even without physically seeing it.  This initial belief in the existence of something by faith then results in a change of your understanding of the things that are related to that thing.  If this thing is significant enough, then over time, the way you act, feel, and think about everything else will change, as it is now filtered through this newly established truth.  One day the world is believed to be flat, then there is evidence to prove it is round, and everything changes.  For those who are disciples of Christ, the evidence of the claims He made is revealed to us in a real way that cannot be denied.  This evidence (which comes from Jesus Himself and the Holy Spirit) gives us the ability to believe, and as the rest of our lives are then filtered through this new truth…we change.  The more we are willing to act, feel, and think through the filter of our faith in Jesus, the greater our faith becomes (given, of course, because of God’s grace) and the more we as an individual change.  The strange thing (that I alluded to in the very first sentence) is that this changed person of great faith is who you were really created to be…so basically you are becoming your real self.  I told you it was strange (or maybe just my strange way of explaining and phrasing things).  The point of this feeble attempt at a philosophy lesson was to prelude some significant events that happened around this week’s church visit.  Now that I think about it, that message does not actually do a good job of leading into this story at all, but it was on my heart to share for some reason, so there you go…faith.  Now on to the next paragraph.  Read more...

Church Experiences

ChurchSurfer @ Living Faith Church: Baseball and BBQ Sauce

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Church Experience #18 – May 8, 2011

Living Faith Church, Hixson TN

It’s Gotta Be The Clues

For the fourth time this year I was left alone on a Sunday, deserted by my wife (to be with a friend who was recovering from surgery in Atlanta), and left to venture out to a church service all by myself.  So far my solo church visits have been interesting…a gospel-fest at New Philadelphia Missionary Baptist with two of the kindest and most talented women I’ve ever met, my sister’s crazy California New Year’s Eve wedding, and a fly-under-the-radar Sunday at First-Centenary United Methodist.  This week’s visit was to Living Faith Church in Hixson, a church I knew very little about except for what I had read on their website on Saturday night before the next morning’s church service.  I had been told about the church by a friend, who had never attended there either, but had somehow heard about it through word of mouth.  I don’t even really remember what it was that my friend said about the church, but what was important to me was that it was mentioned at all.  This stood out to me because I drive by this church a lot and had thought about attending there (or at least researching it), but for some reason I had written it off, maybe assuming that it was a Church of God, and since I had already been to a church in that denomination (Joyful Sound COG), I was more interested in attending other denominations first.  But I’m always listening for “clues” as to where God is leading me next, and anytime a few clues point to the same place, I take that to mean I should go there…so here I am.  Read more...