In our ongoing saga; The Search for Home (otherwise known as "Where in the World did the Appletons Attend Church this Sunday?") we bring to you our third first time visit with our visit today at Northside Assembly of God.
We noticed as we walked in that church grounds are very well kept. The greeters were warm and friendly. The sanctuary is spacious and comfortable.
My first observation about the congregation is that there is a nice cultural mix. One thing that I miss about our former church is the cultural diversity. There was also a nice mix of ages and a big range of people dressed from very casual to very dressy.
The kids were with us for praise and worship before being dismissed for children's church. This is always my preference. I like it best when the kids worship with the adults, but I prefer that they be dismissed to have teaching at their own level. Gabriel has a good friend at this church so we allowed him to sit with his friend for the service. Youth age young people do stay in the sanctuary for the service.
The praise and worship was upbeat and current. The songs were mostly unfamiliar to us, and so it was hard to really join in. Only the last song we sang; You Said, was a song that we knew. This has been a favorite song of mine for quite a while. At our former church that song would have people standing all over the sanctuary with outstretched hands. This congregation was a bit more sedate. I had to fight the urge to jump to my feet in worship. I am not bold enough to be the only one standing in a strange church!!!The praise and worship leader had a very distinctive style that I would have enjoyed just sitting and listening to.
We did not get to hear the pastor of the church as they had a guest pastor. His sermon was very good though and he wove in a lot sports references, even showing football footage midway into his sermon to make a point. It was excellent, I don't even like football and I was still captivated by his sermon and his sports allusions!!
The 1st-6th graders were together for children's church. This is probably just fine for this church, since they do have traditional Sunday school. We did not attend Sunday school this time.
It's a nice church and we have friends there, but all in all we did not feel like this is going to be the one for us.
I do have to share one funny story. We did not decide until this morning where we were going. We were torn between visiting another new church or revisiting one of the churches we've already tried and liked. Bobby sat at the end our road for the longest time, turning the steering wheel back and forth. We dislike visiting around so much that the temptation to just pick something and stick with it is great. But we are committed to visiting several churches and keeping an open mind, so making another first visit won out over repeating a visit just yet. By the time Bobby picked his direction we were all laughing and Gabriel, who was about to text his friend and tell him to look for him at church, said "Dad, make up your mind before I hit send!"
Oh, this is the first church we visited that gave us a present, unless you count the pen I got from Fellowship. We got a nice ceramic mug filled with candy. Our former church gave gifts to visitors on their first three visits, too. It's a nice touch. Visiting churches is awkward, a mug full of Hershey's kisses is a nice touch.
Edited to add: I have to make a small correction here. Some time back we visited Robby's church but we were not actually looking for a new church at that time. His church has a lady who loves to bake and deliver cookies to houses of people who visit! And after I posted this we came home to find a bag of cookies had been delivered to us from Northside as well!
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