With my recent departure from Faith UMC I find myself, for the first time in over seven years, not required to attend a church on Sunday morning. I’ve contemplated sleeping in, waking up just in time to watch football. However, it would feel just plain weird not to go to church on Sunday. But I’m not sure where to go. I could go to Meadowbrook UMC, but there isn’t much to attract me on a Sunday morning. So then where do I go? I’ve decided I must find a place, and I’ve decided I’m going to go “church shopping”. For the next several weeks I plan to attend a different church every Sunday and evaluate my experience there. In part, I want to figure out what it is I really look for in a church, but I also want to see how others worship. I am well versed in the traditional United Methodist worship, and I think it will be fun to broaden my horizons, and experience more, different forms of worship.
I started this Sunday by going big… huge in fact. I attend Grapevine’s mega-church, Fellowship Church. The first thing you’ll notice about FC is the greeters. There are hundreds of greeters from the moment you enter the parking lot, as you enter the doors, and as you make your way through the foyer, toward the worship center. The worship center is an expansive auditorium, with three large screens, a large stage, many many lights, and theater-type seating. The worship experience here resembles something, more like a rock concert that a church service. The worship band was traditional in the rock band sense: lead singer/guitar, lead guitar/back up vocals, bass guitar, and drummer. But the band also had an additional five vocalist and a small choir behind them. They played three songs, none of which I recognized as something I’ve heard previously, before moving on to the sermon.
At this point I should point out the sheer size of FC. It’s more than just a church… or I should say, it’s more than just one church. In fact they have several campuses in downtown Fort Worth, downtown Dallas, Plano, and Miami, Florida… Miami? Really? That seems distant and random.
Today’s sermon was brought to us live from Plano. Meaning, we watch a broadcast, on their three big screens, of the sermon that was being delivered simultaneously at the Plano campus. This is typical on all of their campuses apparently, as the church with the “in person” sermon seems to rotate. But this left me with a feeling of disconnectedness. The message of the sermon was good, and on point with the scripture, but there’s something less personal about watching the sermon on TV. Which is essentially what is was, just watching TV.
After the sermon, there was a brief video from the church’s lead pastor, Ed Young, on the importance of giving. And then another song was played as the offering baskets were passed around. After that, a short prayer, and we were dismissed. And that’s how it felt at the end, like we were being dismissed from something. There wasn’t much hanging around and socializing, everyone immediately got up and proceeded in an orderly fashion out the doors.
There are pros and cons to a service like this. On the one had, the message was meaningful and deep, the band was talented, and the production value was above and beyond. However, there were some key elements missing for me. For starters, I noted there was no altar present. Though I realize an altar isn’t necessarily required for a worship to be valid, I also don’t see it as a small thing. I like having an altar, even if it’s nothing more than a place to set a cross… Come to think of it, I don’t remember seeing a crucifixion present anywhere in the worship center. Really? I can’t recall seeing a single cross located anywhere. That just seems weird.
I also felt like there could have been more prayer as well. A couple of short prayers on either end of the sermon weren’t quite enough. And even another song or two wouldn’t have hurt. Overall I was left feeling disconnected in a spiritual way. Though I did get something out of the message, it was more the feeling of when you learn something really good in class. The spirit still wasn’t in it for me. This is a huge church, and they offer a lot in an attempt to appeal to everyone. But the heart of a church is its Sunday morning worship. And if the spirit isn’t at the heart of everything, then what’s the point?
My upcoming schedule:
December 20th – New Beginnings Church (Arlington, TX)
December 27th – Out of town to Oklahoma, may not make it to church
January 3rd – Bellaire United Methodist (Houston, TX)
January 10th – Brookhaven United Methodist (Dallas, TX)
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