So last Sunday, Drew and I attended yet another church. This one is a church that is attended by a dear friend of mine. I had heard raving reviews from her, and also from one of my (ex) customers at Redeye. I found out that my customer (Colin) was preaching this particular Sunday, so I told Drew I wanted to go.

So we did. We almost drove right by Kingsway Christian Church, as it’s small and easy to miss.  As we walked into the small sanctuary, I was almost immediately greeted by my friend Courtney. She ran back and enveloped me in a big hug. Always a good way to walk into church! She hugged Drew as well, and then Colin came around the corner and greeted us both.

After those greetings, we were of course accosted by the rest of the congregation. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but I’m finding that as a newcomer, it often feels like that.  Like I’ve already talked about in a previous post, I appreciate the warm welcome, but please don’t pressure me into joining your church yet. Just let me worship with you. Drew whispered to me as we ducked into the back pew, “We need name tags that say, ‘Give me a bulletin and leave me alone.’ ”

After we got through the overzealous welcomes and the several apologies for how small the congregation was because of Spring Break (I don’t care how many people are filling your pews. I’m not here to judge you by your numbers.), worship began. Courtney and Colin were the only two leading worship. Courtney on keyboards and harmony (with a special solo on one song) and Colin on guitar and lead vocals. Their power point man was not with them, so there was simply no power point. Period. No words to the songs. They picked easy songs that people would know so they could worship easily. My first reaction was, “Great, how well is this going to go over?” Then they started with Sanctuary, a song that is pretty special to me. Okay, good way to start.

The rest of the songs were good too. I knew all of them (Drew didn’t, and was struggling to try to figure the words out to some as we went) and found it refreshing to not be focused on the words on the screen. I wasn’t so worried about what words were coming next. I just relaxed and worshipped. It was refreshing. And with only two of them leading worship, it was simple. I liked that.

Communion came rather abruptly, with no intro and no indication of how to take it. It was delivered to us in the pews, and Drew and I looked around, wondering how they were going to take it. Did they take it together? Was it a take as you feel led kind of deal? As the new people, you don’t want to do things the wrong way. You wait for instructions. And they never came. I was tempted at first to not take it, as I was somewhat struggling with the worship and the other church crap that often creeps up during services. However, Drew took his wafer and little juice cup, and I thought to myself, “If I need to hold these until the end of the service until I feel ready to take this, I will.” So I took it, and clutching my wafer, prayed the best prayer I could. I was shedding a few tears, mainly out of frustration at the feelings that I can’t seem to feel anymore in worship: peace, warm fuzzies, contentment, conviction. So I simply offered that to God. I asked God to take the frustration, cause it felt like it was all I had to offer. And in that, there was some peace. I opened my eyes, and Drew whispered to me, “The body of Christ, broken for you.” Then, “The blood of Christ, shed for you.” And we had our own special communion service as husband and wife, in the back pew of this little church.

So the service went on. Colin stood up to preach. He spoke for about 40 minutes, and both Drew and I were focused the whole time. It was one of those sermons where you look at your watch and think, “Wow! How did 40 minutes pass so fast?” I was especially encouraged at the fact that he TAUGHT from the Bible rather than PREACH at us. I feel that so many sermons I’ve heard lately have some short Bible verse or verses that the sermon is loosely based around, and they talk for 20 or 30 minutes with some somewhat inspiring message and that’s the end. I often leave feeling a lot of disconnect. Colin didn’t do that. He had us open our Bibles (which made me wish I had brought my own) to Numbers to the story of Balaam and his donkey. He spoke about the choices we make in life, and challenged us to make the right choices, the choices that God would have us make. Balaam made some pretty poor choices. Then he used his “weak hinge” and tied it into the story of Jesus riding the donkey into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He spoke of how Jesus had choices and didn’t need to go through what He did. I was engaged the whole time. I loved being able to read through the Bible and learn from it and be able to relate it to my life.

We walked out that morning feeling refreshed and fulfilled. It was so encouraging to be able to focus during an entire sermon and not drift all over the place. Drew made a comment that it was probably the best service we’ve been to yet. I had to agree.