My wife and I visited 52 churches in a year. Then we attended a bunch more. Here is what we learned.
An Outdoor Service It’s July 2020, and it’s been four months since I’ve been to church on Sunday morning. It isn’t that I’ve lost my faith, have backslidden, or am pursuing a rebellious protest. It’s because of Covid restrictions. With government mandates to avoid large gatherings, most churches responded by moving their services online and […]
Churches Move and Things Change We started visiting fifty-two churches the Sunday after Easter. We celebrated the resurrection of Jesus at our home church and then slipped away for a year, visiting a different Christian church every Sunday for a year. At least that’s the quick way to explain our journey. We doubled up on […]
A Surprising End to a Promising Start Church #7 did indeed relocate, as planned. They’re now a scant 1.3 miles from our home. The move didn’t happen as quickly as they hoped, but it didn’t take that much longer, either. Their new location is an improvement over their old one. Before they met in an […]
A Similar Experienced but Different Our area’s megachurch (Church #51) holds two services in their mega-building, one at 9:30 a.m. and the other at 11:30. Also at 9:30 is a concurrent service in the original building on their campus, a modern cathedral built by the original owners. Multiple Service Options When we visited earlier, we […]
Meeting in a Public-School Building Two weeks ago, as we drove around frantically searching for a church to attend, my wife suggested Church #2. They had just relocated from their cozy storefront location in a small strip mall to rented space at the local school, a temporary meeting place as they raised funds to build […]
Another Change in Service Times After striking out at two churches who changed their starting times and dismissing three more, I remember Church #4. Next door to Church #5, I think they have a 10:30 service, and my notes confirm that. We agree to go there, more as a default option than anything else. With […]
The Summer Church Schedule Just down the road from the congregation that cancelled their service because of their summer church schedule is Church #8. We enjoyed our visit there but later realized it was solely because of one significant interaction we had after the service. The rest of the congregation ignored us, and little else […]
A Failure to Communicate I enjoyed the worship at Church #27 and appreciated their charismatic demeanor. Yet I was also critical of most other aspects of their service. My wife said I had a bad attitude, with my perceptions tainted by a former member who had a painful experience there. He left scarred and disillusioned, […]
Experiencing a Holy Awe of God I awake both excited and unsettled. I’m excited at the prospect of returning to Church #28 (“Intriguing and Liturgical”). There’s much for me to learn from their mystical worship of God, from their rituals steeped in meaning that I don’t yet comprehend. However, I’m also unsettled having awakened with […]
The Third Time is the Charm It’s Memorial Day weekend. Holidays are a bad time to visit a church. Seldom is it a representative experience. The wise decision would be to attend our own church, but I know we usually have the B team on holiday weekends. We’ve already visited this church twice and know […]