MetroLife

Becka:
Inner City Life, Inner City Pressure

One of the nicest things about MetroLife’s service (at least in theory) was that the kids were included. All of the children and babies were in the service for the first forty-five minutes: during the singing, announcements, etc. Most churches don’t do that because of the noise/distraction factor. And truthfully it was a bit noisy and distracting. After about forty-five minutes there was a ten-minute break in the service; people got coffee, chatted, and dropped their kids off in the nursery or their classes. Again, very complete-church-family-oriented as that break was a good opportunity to meet and talk with the other people there, something that’s almost impossible to do in the approximately 30-seconds most churches give attendees to greet each other (formulaically after a song and before they sit down). There are good reasons for splitting into groups (age-based, gender-based, life-stage-based, etc.) at times, and I wouldn’t want to stop that. But it seems to happen very infrequently (at least in American churches) that the entire particular expression of the body of Christ is in the same room. And that is a beautiful thing to see.

As a side note, if you were wondering, “How long was this service anyway? Forty-five minutes, plus ten minutes, and there was still a message to come?!” Yes. That concerned me at the time, as well. I am now much more conscious about trying to determine service length from the info on churches’ websites: having a two-hour service sprung on you when you’re not expecting it is kinda rough.

Kailey:
I think Becka and I had a lot of the same thoughts about our initial experience with Metro… So…

A note on Metro-Life (completely unrelated to my first-timer experience there):

My roommate Hallie attends Metro-Life, and she is the reason we knew of (and subsequently visited) this church. It’s tucked away unassumingly at the corner of a major intersection, and I’m not sure I’d have ever found it on my own. She talks about her experiences there often, and always in praise. (That speaks volumes to me about the individual congregation members and community, as one will more often than not hear the not-so-flattering, honest truth from one’s roommates.)

The things I hear about most frequently from Hallie are services that individuals and/or groups are doing for one another, or in the community at large. I once watched Hallie walk out with an entire family dinner she’d just cooked for a woman in her church who’d just had a baby, and apparently there were several others who were taking turns providing this relief to that family. On another occasion, the men in her home group sent all the women to Starbucks with gift cards, and in the duration, the men washed their cars.

This strikes me on two levels. First, I think service is a great way to check the pulse of any congregation. The men washed their cars, but they may as well have been washing their feet. If we’re teaching biblical truth and really worshipping God, service (both to those within the community and without) should be a natural by-product of healthy, whole worshippers. It’s easy to fade into the background at a church the size of Metro, and never really engage in service. I’m both pleased and impressed with the frequent reports I hear from my roommate. Secondarily, I’ve found in my own life that service is not just a by-product of a heart that is right with God, but a helpful path toward that end. While I never want to fall into the trap of believing that God really NEEDS my help, offering it to Him rarely gets me anywhere but holier. That’s not to say I think that my service justifies me—indeed, my service is as filthy rags to God, and there’s nothing I could do that’s good enough to make up for all the ugliness in my own heart. But the act of service, through God’s grace, changes something in me—far more, perhaps, than it changes the reality of the person I’m aiming to serve. And that refines my heart just a little bit each time, in that charming way that only getting my hands dirty really does.

Kailey:
I'm with you on the service length thing, Beck. I wish I could say I wasn't checking my watch after an hour has passed, but this was deeply ingrained in my up-bringing at Catholic school. I think sermons running over might have been a venial sin. In any case, it has a lot to do with expectation, which is semi-comforting to me when I consider the condition of my heart. In Africa, I expected our worship service to run a full 3 hours, and mentally prepared myself. When we adjourned after 2, it felt surprisingly abrupt.