First Visit #4 in The Search for Home

I am going to call this a first visit even though we have visited Thrive Community Church once before. Our prior visit was before we began to actively search for a church home; we were there to visit with our son and to meet his awesome pastor. (Hi, Pastor Herb, I know you are checking this to see what I say about Thrive!!!)

The first word that comes to mind in describing Thrive is intimacy. It's a small, intimate church. They are not small because of failed membership drives or a lack of good advertising. They are small by design. They invite growth through relationship. They make it clear in every possible way that nothing is as important to them as intimate relationships. It draws me in and scares me silly at the same time. I'm drawn in because I am hungering for that sort of fellowship and scared of it at the same time because of my legendary personal space issues. To be a part of this church I would have to come to terms and overcome my own difficulties in close relationships.

They meet in a warehouse. This is not a warehouse inspired building, meant to look warehouse-ish to look hip and cool and happening. No, this IS a warehouse on a road of businesses and warehouses. The members are refurbing and improving it bit by bit with their own hands. Every project has the fingerprints of the pastor and the members on it. The building has its quirks, but the church makes it work. I get the impression that this is not a temporary meeting place but that this is good enough for now and the future. This church does not place as high a value on buildings and property as they do relationships. Having said that, I must say that the improvements they have made to the building thus far have been done well. It's like visiting someone who is rehabbing a house, parts of it are coming along nicely and other parts have that "this will do until we have more time and money" feel. I like this. A lot. It speaks of a church who will move forward in God's work but not overextend themselves financially to make everything perfect. It speaks of a church with proper priorities.

The church family is very welcoming and since I already knew some members we were greeted with hugs instead of just handshakes by a few people. As other members introduced themselves it was awfully fun to say "Yes, we're Robby's parents" and then listen to folks talk about how much they love Robby. (It was especially fun today since Robby was not there due to a work related trip that turned into a long, drawn out adventure of missed flights and other chaos.) After our prior visit we were blessed with homemade cookies by Joyce; I started to hint to her that this was our first official, searching-for-a-church visit and therefore we deserved a do-over with the cookies, but I refrained. Joyce is pretty much known for her cookies, I gathered this from hearing others discuss her cookie delivery ministry.

Everything at Thrive is casual and relaxed. Some churches allow people to bring their coffee into the service, Thrive takes it a step further and actually drags the coffee cart into the service and one of the announcements that rotates on the screen is that you may get a refill ANY time you wish. In spite of that I saw that people did not abuse that and there is really no distracting moving about during the service. A couple of people got coffee refills after praise and worship, but it was not distracting at all.

Shalom and Justice joined the children's ministry during the service. I am not sure what curriculum they are using, but they did share that they will be doing Operation Christmas Child. The children are in one group. Gabriel's age group participate in the adult service.

The praise and worship is far less polished than any other church we have visited or our former church. There is no full-time minister of music here, in fact there is no full-time staff at all. Everyone here has a day job, even the pastor. Like everything else at Thrive, the praise and worship ministry is of the people, by the people and for God. Today's praise and worship was especially deep and moving.

Pastor Herb's preaching style is very laid back and casual. He does not stand on the stage, walks back and forth in front of the congregation. It's more of a teaching style than a preaching style. I relate to this style very well, so I thoroughly enjoy it. I cannot say I "enjoyed" all of his sermon today as it was a terribly convicting lesson about how Christians are perceived in the world. I squirmed a time or two when he hit a little too close to home.

Pastor Herb is what initially drew me to Thrive. I have seen for myself that when a member of Thrive is hurting Herb becomes that shepherd who would leave the 99 sheep to go to the rescue of the 1. And it is not like he does not have plenty to occupy his time already; this is a bivocational pastor with a family, a house, and a yard to mow like everyone else. But when he is needed he finds the time and the energy to pour into the hurting church family member.

Thrive is the sort of church that could be a lot of fun to serve in. There is no a specific way of doing things and so I imagine the ideas of the church family are all considered. That's a pretty cool thing to contemplate.

I asked the kids if they would want to give Thrive a try on Wednesday night to see what goes on then. They were open to this.