Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church

Kailey:

We arrived at 10:45. Service started at 11. The sermon began at 12:22pm. (I checked.)
The first hour and twenty-two minutes of the Macedonia Missionary Baptist church service was like being in a musical. Only in real life. The enormous 70-person choir belted out soulful melodies and harmonies. The pastor stood up to the podium looking stoic, and then suddenly without warning he would bob his head and sing out a single line, like, “Ohhhhh Looooord. Mmmmm Hmmmm…” And then return to looking stoic. They did choir right.

There were big ladies in big hats, clapping and dancing in the isles. There was prophesy. There was yelling “amen!” This service had it all. It’s interesting. In a Summit church service, I would have been completely distracted by someone standing up and clapping and yelling amen. But here, it was so completely appropriate to the ambiance of the service, it would have seemed more odd if no one had stood or clapped or yelled at all. What would ordinarily be distracting to me did nothing but enhance the service at Macedonia. It was like worshipping in another language. A beautiful language. I loved it.
The scariest part of the service for me was when the pastor asked all the visitors to stand. This was fairly normal. However, after we were standing, he then let us know that we were going to be introducing ourselves to the congregation, giving our name and home church. This might not have been as terrifying, had Macedonia not had roughly 800 people in the room. And if we weren’t the only two white people there. (There was one other white guy, but he was married to a black lady, so I don’t count him.)
I was one of the last two people to go. Thank goodness for that. I got to see the pattern. Greeting. Name. Home Church. City. Pastor’s info. Thanks. “Good morning! My name is Kailey Hamilton, and I bring you greetings from Summit church in Orlando Florida, and our Senior Pastor Isaac J. Hunter. Thank you so much for inviting us to worship with you today!” I said, “us,” and they thought I meant “Summit.” I meant “me and Becka.” But Becka did not stand. She was clearly a visitor. Sketchy.
My only trouble with this was that I feared it might make visitors feel unwelcome, or scare them off. But it didn’t seem to do either of those things. This may be a cultural difference that is simply lost to me. Everybody (except me) seemed perfectly happy with the situation, and not at all caught off guard.

It was cold when we’d arrived, but by 10 minutes in, the place was blazing, and people were fanning themselves in every direction. Dressed to the nines. It was awesome. This was easily one of the most fun churches I’ve been to. It wasn’t so much just a worship service as it was a worship experience.

And the singing.

Oh, the singing…


Beck:

Culture-shock-wise this church was the closest experience to the Quaker visit. Although aside from that, it really wasn’t in any way similar. For example,
a. The friends were silent; Macedonia had a seventy person choir (dressed in brown and pink)
b. There were fourteen friends but 800 Macedonians
c. The friends mostly wore jeans, but the Macedonians dressed up.

Well, I guess the one other thing that was similar is that we didn’t blend in either place. It’s hard to melt into a crowd of fourteen, especially when they’ve all come in to find you singing. But it’s also hard to blend into a crowd of 800 when you are two of the three white people in the room.

The overall impression I had of this church is that it was a lot of fun… in that way where you know you don’t belong and you know everyone else also knows that because these people share an entirely different culture built on shared stories and experiences that have produced ways of interacting that I can see enough to slightly understand and (politely) imitate but not enter. It was spending real-life time in a culture I’ve mostly only read about (and thanks to Zora Neale Hurston, this statement is even more true than it would ordinarily be from me).

Anyway, I watched God in Eatonville. There was a lot of singing. Unsurprisingly in a much different style than I was used to. With lyrics like, “Do I have good religion? Certainly, Lord,” “What did you come to this service for?” “I may not have this chance again, so while I’ve got it I want to take this chance to praise the Lord,” and “I’m gonna trust in the Lord till I die.”

The sermon was on Blind Bartimaeus (by Reverend Willie C. Barnes – I mention that because when the visitors were asked to stand and introduce themselves, they were also asked to give their home church and most went ahead and gave the pastor’s name as well). This sermon did not restrict itself to the story of Blind Bartimaeus or to making one point (as at least one mega-church pastor feels should be the case). But my favorite thing the pastor said was related to that story: “This blind beggar chose to be delivered,” he said, “If you want to be delivered, you can be delivered.” Amen.

Last notes about the church: a lot of women wore hats. And pantyhose. The ushers dressed in white and passed out tissues during the service, as necessary. Not everybody remained seated the entire service. And there were fans. Real printed-cardboard fans. Just like in a book.

Of course I fanned myself a little.

FH7DA

Kailey:

A nice gentleman came over to greet us while we were sitting in the third row from the back. Turns out he was the Senior Pastor of the church. Stuff like that always impresses me.

FH7DA (I like calling it that. It makes me feel like I’m verifying my identity when I’ve opened my email on a new computer.), is probably the most diverse church we’ve attended so far. There were so many different cultures represented in the room that it was absolutely delightful to just look around. I know that certain pastors will inevitably attract certain similar personalities, but it’s nice to see real diversity on occasion. A smattering of the body of Christ. The (unspecified Hispanic?) couple in front of us (who may or may not have been the shortest two people I’ve ever seen—not that that’s typical of Samoans, they were just short people) had a tiny little baby, intent on making googly eyes at Becka, that I’m fairly certain made it nearly impossible for her to concentrate on the sermon for the entirety of service. So awesome.

A few logistics of note…

1. They had a deaf interpreter. I’m always a fan of this. The signs the interpreters make for words like “hallelujah” always strike me as exactly the type of movement I would use to praise God, if I couldn’t speak words. It’s beautiful.
2. They had an extended meet and greet. I like this. I think it’s fun to have several minutes in which you’re allowed to say hi to people you’ve never met and be nice to everybody and strike up conversations that would, at any other time besides this one, seem completely awkward. (I have no tangible proof that Becka disagrees with me on this, but if I were a betting woman…)
3. Very contemporary worship. But not cool contemporary. Stuff that you would hear on the Z88.3. (Sorry Z enthusiasts. Please note that this a preference observation, and I think that your music is pleasing to Jesus.) I wasn’t a huge fan of the music, but the musicians themselves were really talented. There was this Asian keyboard/piano guy who should have been in a boy band of some kind. There was a bassist who I would have gone to watch at House of Blues.
4. There was no song during the offering. I love it when churches recognize that giving is an act of worship to God, an act of celebration and faith. I suppose you don’t need music for that, but I think I prefer it. There was, however, a performance song after the offering by an African American woman, who I just wanted to cheer for. I’m not a huge fan of performance worship, but man, could that lady carry a tune. I asked Becka if she would be embarrassed if I went “wooo!” She nodded yes. I went “wooo!” at the end.
5. The message was part of a series. I like that. I’m a fan of going through books of the bible, or at least going through scripture topically, and pushing the same points home (or building on them) over time. I think it helps my spiritual ADHD.

I give this church 47 unspotted sheep of Jacob for the awesome diversity and generally fun congregation. Plus one spotted goat for the really cheesy video of the guys in the Jeep Grand Cherokee. (You know what I’m talking about, Beck.)

Becka:

I got the impression when I was a kid that there was something not quite right about the Seventh Day Adventists; on the other hand, when I was a kid I also thought Presbyterians, Methodists, and Southern Baptists were heretics, so I wasn’t sure that my childhood impression would be correct. I just wasn’t sure what to expect from this visit. All I really knew about Adventists was that they’re vegetarians and go to church on Saturday.

What I got was a service indistinguishable from any evangelical Christian church: they even promoted a new evangelism book by Mark Mittleburg and Lee Stroebel. I was shocked. There was no real weirdness. So I had to look them up later on Wikipedia.

Turns out they do have some slightly odd/heretical views. The sect grew out of a group of William Miller’s followers. Miller predicted (based on a passage in Daniel) that Christ would come back on October 22, 1844. When that didn’t happen, some of his followers decided that Miller’s calculations were correct, but his interpretation of Daniel wasn’t. They thought that what Christ really did on that day was to enter the “Most Holy Place” of the heavenly sanctuary (the reality of which the Hebrew Tabernacle was representative) and begin “investigative judgment,” where all Christians are judged for all the universe to see. And which seems to be a lengthy process, since its apparently still going on.

I don’t want to belong to the Adventist church, myself, but there were some really commendable things about this particular one. First, they share. We’d actually already been to this church building, because the Adventists let Grace Fellowship meet there on Sundays. Second, their time in the service to greet people was fantastic. It lasted around five minutes and people got up, walked around, and talked to each other. (Not me, necessarily, but people). Third, there was a whole lot more racial diversity among the people than you usually see. Kind of a visual reminder that we’re all one church (Probably. I think at least some of them are Christians; they believe in Jesus. On the other hand, some adventists believe in the fallen nature of Jesus and incomplete atonement, neither of which are compatible with orthodox Christianity.) Fourth, the Pastor was just flat-out friendly, or at the very least had the ability to shift focus on Saturday mornings. This pastor came over, sat down and started talking to us. I didn’t even know he was the pastor until the very end of the conversation. Usually I’m tipped off by the gravity pastors have, knowing they’re the LEADER of the congregation or the fact that they can only focus a tiny fraction of their attention on anything besides their awareness that they have to get up a preach a sermon in a couple minutes. Way to go, not taking yourself too seriously, pastor! I respect that. And to be honest, knowing I had to preach a sermon would stress me out too. So I understand, you other pastors, it was just a nice change and the way I’d like to be myself.

And that's it for peculiar Adventist theology, brought to you by Wikipedia.

Discovery Church: Kailey's a month late

Kailey:

Discovery Church, which meets in the same building as Status, has at least a similar feel to Status in some ways. If this is only or mostly due to the location and surroundings, I’m not certain. But I think there’s a certain demographic that naturally meets to worship in that building, and perhaps Discover and Status just represent slightly different expressions of that demographic. In any case, it felt familiar, so I’m not sure I got an accurate “first-time-at-this-church” experience.

It was an odd week to visit, and we might have to go back because of it. It was a service celebrating the last 25 years that Discovery has been Discovery. Not your typical service. It felt akin to when somebody gets the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Oscars. You’re expecting the announcement of Best Dolly Grip in an Animated Short Film, and then suddenly there’s this long nostalgic video about all of the roles Pacino played before he sank to the level of Satan in The Devil’s Advocate. The video really highlighted the Pastor and all his journeys. It was long, a bit superfluous for my taste, and for a visitor, it was possibly a bit of nostalgia overload. I was waiting for somebody to come down the isle selling commemorative plates.

In all other ways I like Discovery. They do a lot of really great things. Good messages. Good worship. Good Etc. I wouldn’t discourage anybody from attending. Everyone I know who goes there really enjoys it, and I trust their opinion.

It was just a bit of an awkward week to visit, I feel. We’ll head back and see a normal service when we have a chance.

Discovery Church

Becka:

Warning: this is going to be one my blogs that is only very loosely connected to the church we visited. Background: the service we went to was a celebration of their 25^th anniversary, so it was very focused on the history of Discovery Church itself. Triggering event: at one point, the pastor mentioned that he hoped the people who weren’t a part of Discovery would become part but said that if another church would be a better fit for a particular person, he hoped that person would join that church and get involved there.

I’ve heard many other pastors say similar things, as well, including, “if you don’t think this is the right place for you, we would love to help you find the right church.” Which I actually think is fine. I don’t have a problem with a person looking for a style of singing or teaching through which they are able to worship or learn about God better. On a regular but never exclusive basis, at any rate. I mean, I would prefer to go regularly to a church whose style of music I enjoy (i.e. doesn’t make me cringe from cheesiness in a reaction similar to the whole nails-on-chalkboard scenario) and a style of teaching that helps me learn (in the same vein as my nearly religious conviction that kids should be separated into honors or gifted classes because the benefit of having a style of teaching that fits your style of learning outweighs the superiority/inferiority complex you may be developing due to Brave New segregation). That being said, there’s also tremendous benefit in, for example, this project where I’m immersed in styles I am unfamiliar with or would not appreciate constantly, but are extraordinarily refreshing (and a great reminder that I don’t have a corner on any kind of truth) in small doses.

What I have been thinking more and more about is that I wish the entire congregation of individual churches (as opposed to the “leadership”) could have relationships with the people from other churches. Yes – separate so you can learn better. But don’t stay separated. Because there is more to life than learning (and decent music). And it is not nearly enough for pastors of churches to get together once a month, or for a couple of small group program directors to get together and brainstorm. It is all of the people who make up the church and all of the people who should “partner” with each other.

So what would that mean in the city of Orlando? The first idea I came up with is that maybe there could be some interaction at the small group level. Small groups are nearly every American church’s strategy for forming Christ-centered relationships between its members. They are already used to being intentional about relationships with each other, so maybe they’re the best entity to start intentional relationships with another church. I was thinking maybe a small group could contact the director of groups at another church and ask him/her to put them in contact with a group who’d like to go with them to do a specific service project. Or would like to come over for dinner to share their stories. Or something.

Summit Church does something I think is fantastic that they call “measured in stories.” What that generally looks like is a video about a person in the congregation and what they are doing now and how they’ve been changed (the premise being that you can only measure the success of your church by whether people are being changed, not by numbers like the amount of people who attend – incidentally, while I think that is one of the best indicators of church health I’ve ever heard of, I don’t think the amount of growth happening in a church should be used to prove that the leadership is or is not doing right – but that’s a whole nother idea). Anyway, what I started out to say, was maybe a church could do a video like that about someone who goes to another church. Or maybe instead of having a “building fund,” or no, wait, I mean a “capital campaign fund,” for your own church’s building project, you do it for another church. And then go to the first service in their new building.

Anyway. It’s not like there’s nobody doing these things already. But I’d like to see more of it. Particularly in my own life. Over and out.

Kailey:

(to be added tonight...)

Grace Fellowship

Kailey:

An overview of the service…
Music: Very contemporary, upbeat, trendy. (They had a fog machine.)
Preaching: Very casual. The pastor was wearing a button up and jeans, and seemed very approachable and down to earth.
Teaching: Practical. An excellent point about doing things FOR the approval of God, vs doing things WITH the approval of God. Accessible enough for the new Christian, but helpful enough for the old soul. Also tech savvy. They asked us to text questions to the pastor.
Lobby: Really inviting. Coffee, donuts, people with headsets walking around and smiling every time we make eye contact. They also have their children’s ministry check in set up through a computer, which seems far more efficient than other places I’ve seen it done.

Favorite part of the service:
They clapped for the first-timers. They didn’t make us stand up or fill out a card. They just clapped because we were there. I liked that. It was not intimidating and very inviting and exactly the type of thing that would make me want to be a second-timer.

A note on worship atmospheres and fog machines...
Reflecting back on our experience with the Quaker church, I realize that my tastes have been changing with regard to music in worship. This is and will continue to be a preference issue. Connecting with God during a worship set (provided that the songs are not in some way blatantly irreverent) is often far more a reflection of the heart of the worshipper than a reflection of the “goodness” or “badness” of the music. (Note* the man downtown with the big sign that says, “You’re going to Hell. Accept Jesus…” would certainly disagree on this point. He told my friend that rock and roll is evil, and when asked to define “rock and roll,” he said, “You know… certain… beats.” If that is true, the worship music is probably much better in Hell.)
All of that to say, I have certain tastes in worship. That doesn’t mean other styles of worship are wrong, or even “not as good.” Worshipping God in an atmosphere that is not my preference is almost certainly what I’ll be striving to do for the rest of my life—whether that’s in a church or in a cubicle.

All the same…
Fog machines.
Meh.


Becka:

I was impressed and surprised by the attention to quality at Grace Fellowship. I’m not sure how many people regularly attend on Sundays – we went to the earliest service, and although we were sitting in the front, my impression was that there were not many people there at all. Like less than a hundred. So I was impressed that they have mega-church quality without (yet) being a megachurch. For example:

1. There were touchscreen computers for the children’s ministry check-in. Those have got to be expensive.

2. They did a lot with very few colored stage lights. I think there were only about thirteen lights, seven onstage and three on each side of the room. It did help, of course, that they were color-change lights. Which are awesome and expensive.

3. Their advertisement video for service projects looked to be at least semi-professionally produced. Expensive?

I really do like the quality one can get if one spends a lot of money. Although some/much of the time I’m more than willing to give up, in a church, some of the amenities comparable to those we experience at recreation-industry venues (whose point is to take your money and give you a good show in exchange.) By which I mean I don’t always think churches should compete with that level of quality; their purpose is decidedly not to entertain, so why spend so much time and money focusing on that? Even though I value quality very, very highly. Anyway, Grace obviously put a lot of importance on equipment that would make the Sunday service experience smooth, non-distracting, and stress-free… but also (and here’s something awesome) they had a brochure explaining their budget for their building campaign, and fifty percent of the money raised will go out the door to other people. That’s my kind of budget. I highly respect churches who give that much of their money to other people.

One final side note that has nothing to do with the topic I chose to blog about for this church: on the particular Sunday we attended, no one introduced or explained the offering. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, baskets were passed. Luckily I know the church etiquette for that situation, and quickly passed on the one I was handed without looking directly into it or at the people putting stuff in. Do most people attending church know what offering is? Or would they have been surprised? In any case, I think a reminder about why we give is always beneficial.

First Presbyterian Orlando (Traditional service)

Kailey:

First Pres Orlando (Traditional Service)

I loved the robes—brought me right back to my Catholic roots. Black with Red accents and a shiny gold cross occasionally peaking out. Very stylish. And an alter GIRL. How progressive. The general feel of this church will be very comfortable to anyone who is most accustomed to a traditional service, but would like more practical preaching. And the décor—just lovely. Very nearly Catholic, endless stained glass and stained wooden pews, but without all the superfluous dying Jesus statues.

While the music was more traditional than what I’m used to, I must say that they do traditional music really, really well. The piano was fan-TAS-tic. Not the sleepy, borderline-score-for-horror-film organ variety I became intimately familiar with while attending Bishop Leonard Regional Catholic Elementary School. *Chapel every Tuesday and Thursday at 9.

It’s a big church, and there are two video cameras recording at all times—one of these sends a simulcast to the contemporary service next door—though they’re not nearly as noticeable as one might imagine. The space is large enough that they fade into the periphery rather quickly.

The teaching was very practical, and I believe intentionally so. The language was surprisingly casual compared to the garb, as it were. The Pastor made jokes about Presbyterians, and the Presbyterians in the audience laughed at his Presbyterian jokes. I’m always pleased when a Pastor can make fun of his denomination, and even more pleased when the congregation lets him get away with it. I think the only thing I would say I disliked was that, (while there was much discussion of how not following God well *behaviorally* is a reflection of how much we love or don’t love God), there was decidedly little discussion about what we’re missing out on when we don’t follow God well. Behavior is a condition of the heart. Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. And I’d bet that out of the overflow of the heart, the flesh acts. I would have loved to hear more about how following God well can change our very desires, rather than how to manage our behaviors—which are the by-products of desires that may never change, should we not intentionally pursue such refinement.

I liked the service, overall, and it was well executed in all aspects. I give it 68 techni-color dream coats.

Becka:

I think a traditional Presbyterian service is about as “high church” as the evangelicals get. And since I am not used to such an elevated service, I enjoyed it. Highly. Especially (let’s be honest) the parts where the organist/pianist played. Schubert’s “Impromptu in Ab,” Baldwin’s “Be Still and Know That I Am God,” and Best’s “O Praise the Lord With One Consent” according to the program (yes, it was definitely a program as opposed to a bulletin). It was just like going to a concert! And it was free! And during the prelude a couple of middle-school age-ish girls carried tall fancy candlestick-type things down the aisle and lit the candles on the altar. And there was an actual Choir. And the pastor, on occasion, preached to it. So much fun.

This was also one of the first services I’ve been to where I felt like the church paid attention to the room they were actually in when they created the Sunday service environment. Admittedly it was a traditional service in a traditional building so it would have been more of a stretch not to do that, but most (I’d say 95%) of the churches I’ve been in block all the windows (if there are any), get colorful stage lights and maybe a fog machine, dim the lights in the room, and light the stage like a rock concert during the singing. Nothing wrong with that. But there’s no reason it has to be done like that, either. Certainly not so uniformly. It was a refreshing change to be in a room lit on purpose with natural light that illumined the architecture and pews and organ pipes(!) and choir and pastor and congregants.

I award this church twelve sheaves of wheat to go along with the dreamcoats, mostly because I had fun.

Orlando North Community Church

Becka:

OK, there’s really only one thing I want to say about this church. They are a church plant (that’s not the one thing, that’s just a set-up), so... they are friendly (that was the one thing). By far the friendliest church I’ve ever been to. This is what it should be like in every church. And I bet this is what it used to be like in every church. Before they got big. Or before they never got big, but before they had an established community. This church, the entire church, is still actively pursuing relationships. Heck, they adopted a missionary family whose previous home church had closed down. This happened during the only service the missionaries had been to at this church, less than a week before they left the country. The first service I went to (Kailey and I have been to two now), no less than five people came up to say hi… and all of them would have sat down and had a conversation if there’d been time. It was just exactly like they were interested in knowing me, not just being nice. And I therefore return the complement. Orlando North, I would like to know you too. And to commence our nascent practice of handing out points, I hereby bestow on you 5 tiny white plastic church-shaped coin banks. I always liked those things.


Kailey:

My laughter in this service (which was to flow in abundance) began almost immediately when Pastor Rob made fun of the Christian vernacular, “traveling mercies.”
I mean, who can take that phrase seriously, really?



The inside of the Orlando North space (which will be moving to a place called the Loft on August 23rd), might look something like the setting for an office seminar, if not for the band equipment and multi-color fabric cross backdrop on the modest stage. To the left there is an art piece next to a small table, which is set with communion elements. There are pillows arranged on a square of carpet below, and I watch as a stray person here and there kneels down to take the sacrament while worship plays from the front.
Before the sermon begins, Pastor Rob takes the time to explain that the church has purchased backpacks loaded with school supplies to give to families in need as their children return to school. The stage is riddled with them. Contrasted with the makeshift pews of individual blue upholstered seats and the grey board room carpet, I am pleased to observe this congregation has invested their resources into something of more lasting value than sweet stage lights. (Which are certainly great, too.)

I am charmed by this church, and continue to be, two weeks I a row. I will give you some reasons in list form, because I am a bookkeeper, and I like to see things in list form…

1. We were greeted at the door by several friendly faces. Once inside, we were further greeted by Gary, Glen, and Patsy, in rapid succession. Week two, we were re-greeted by some of these same people, who remember us and seemed genuinely happy to see us again.

2. The church is small—perhaps 100 people. It allows for an intimacy in worship that I think can be lost on larger congregations. This also made Pastor Rob very accessible, which is incredibly refreshing.

3. The congregants laid hands on the new children’s ministry director, to commission her. The second week, they adopted two missionaries, and laid hands to commission them as well. (As an aside, I am incredibly uncomfortable in super-pentecostal settings, where there’s a lot of showy dancing and banners, and pointing to the ceiling with one’s index finger while singing, and laying hands and speaking in tongues, etc., but I felt surprisingly comfortable with these commissionings—and even took part. I cannot identify the exact quality of the people in this church that struck me as so genuine, but they just seemed spiritually honest, if that makes sense. I believed they touched these people because they loved them and wanted to participate in a symbolic “setting apart” of each individual for the work God is calling them to. There was nothing showy about it.)

4. There was a man behind us who snorted every time he laughed. It was hysterical.

5. Pastor Rob commented on the man snorting behind us. Everybody laughed, including the man, who again promptly snorted. I believe laughter should be a part of worship, and the comfort in this church made laughter easy. I think it must warm the heart of God. (Unless you’re laughing at a child who has fallen off a bicycle, or an elderly person whose dentures have become unglued.)

6. Pastor Rob is an incredibly gifted communicator. I have enjoyed the teaching thoroughly, and plan to attend the remainder of the series.

They took a moment in the service to “detox,” as they called it. A woman read a passage of scripture, and the congregation simply took a moment to reflect and meditate on God’s enormous glory, as opposed to presenting petitional prayer. I liked that. I need to take more time to detox and reflect on the goodness of God.

I award this church 197 stone tablets—plus one bronze snake because the worship leader forgot the words once. But the people there laughed with him, and they are friendly and graceful and forgiving, and it was a pleasant reminder that there are things far, far more valuable than aesthetic or auditory excellence.

Okay. I take the bronze snake back.

*CORRECTION: It was not a man who was snorting behind us after all, but a woman. Thank you for the correction, Pastor Rob. And my sincerest apologies to you, miss. I thought it would be tactless to turn around just to satisfy my own selfish curiosity about what you might have looked like. ;)