First visit #2 in The Search for Home

We skipped church last week to take advantage of the amazing weather and go to the zoo!


So today we visited church with our daughter, Bekah. She attends Fellowship Bible Church. She has asked us to attend for a couple of months, but it took us so long just to feel ready to start looking for a church.

The facilities are beautiful. Very modern and non-traditional, the lobby areas are bright with lots of windows and high ceilings, the sanctuary is more of an auditorium style with screens and recessed stage.

The church has an amazing educational wing. Each classroom is decorated with a theme and that theme is incorporated into the lesson. Justice was in a space themed room and Shalom was in a log cabin themed room. This Sunday was apparently mostly a get acquainted day as the kids all promoted up last week. I was glad to see the children divided by age/grade as opposed to being all in one big group. They were both thrilled with their classes and have already been lobbying for this church to be the one we choose.

Gabriel usually sits with us on Sunday morning as most churches do not offer a youth service on Sunday mornings. Fellowship does, however and he attended that. Attendance was down because the majority of the youth are on a white water rafting trip. He liked the youth building, it is styled as a barn. The youth divide into small groups and discuss a topic together. This format works well for Gabriel and when we left our former church he grieved most over leaving his small group. He seemed to feel very comfortable with the youth group. This is important because he can be a bit shy and and unsure of himself in new situations.

The praise and worship was very good. Some songs were familiar, some were new to us. I saw a few people lifting hands but I never felt quite comfortable enough to do so myself.

The sermon was wonderful. The pastor reminded me of the favorite pastor I ever learned from, Pastor Winter at Evangelical Community Church. (side note, I loved his preaching so much, it was deep and clear and it touched the heart and the intellect at the same time. It broke my heart when he stepped down as senior pastor and it was not terribly long after this that we left that church for the one we left this summer.) The pastor is from South Africa and speaks with a beautiful accent. He uses whiteboards to outline his points, I LOVED that!! His teaching is deep and clear and it touches the heart and the intellect at the same time.

You can take your coffee into the service. I like that. I like the casual tone that sets.

Okay, everything has its cons, right? The church is pretty big. Looking around I could not help but wonder if we would be lost there. This might be an unfounded fear, but because our last church was very growth oriented, I feel like I want to be in a small, intimate church right now. The church does pass offering baskets, not my favorite way to collect the tithes and offerings, but there is no big deal made of the offering time from the leadership. They are simply passed. So that was not too bad, but I still prefer the box where you can go and drop in your offering and its between you and God.

We will most likely visit again, if we don't we might have a mutiny on our hands!