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.