My wife and I visited 52 churches in a year. Then we attended a bunch more. Here is what we learned.
Can You Have a Church Service Without Hearing a Preacher Speak? My wife and I recently visited a church. Though we didn’t know it before we walked in, their service would be different that week. There was no sermon. The church used the normal sermon time to talk about the missionaries their church supported. They […]
Embrace Those Who Are Checking Out Your Church For the past several months, a roadside sign at a church proclaims “Visitors Welcome.” This amuses me. Isn’t that assumed? Doesn’t every church want to grow? I’ve never been to a church that had a “no visitors” policy. Why does this church need to advertise their desire […]
My wife and I recently visited a church near our home. Their website said they were a charismatic church. This would make them a refreshing anomaly in an area filled with mainline churches and a sprinkling of evangelical ones. I anticipated what we would find. However, when we arrived, I was dismayed to read their […]
Church Marketing Easter this year was a few weeks ago, on April 5. A week and a half later, on April 15, I received a postcard inviting me to attend a church’s Easter service. Aside from arriving too late to do any good, the church wasn’t even nearby; it was an hour’s drive away. What […]
Adjusting to an Ever Varying Sunday Schedule When my wife and I started our journey of visiting fifty-two churches in a year, one variable seemed trivial at first but had wide ramifications. That item was service times. With church starting times as early as 8 a.m. and as late as 11:30 a.m., our Sundays looked […]
Say a Pre-Church Prayer One of the practices my wife and I followed when we visited 52 churches was to pray before we headed out the door. This seems simple enough and something we should have always done, but praying prior to church was a practice we seldom did, more likely skipping it than remembering. […]
Between last Easter and this Easter, my wife and I visited fifty-two churches. Today marks the end of that adventure but also the beginning of a new one. 52 Churches Wrap-up Our journey is over. I’m sad and excited at the same time. Our spiritual sojourn of fifty-two churches has ended; reunion with our community […]
For the past 19 weeks, my bride and I have been visiting different churches to expand our understanding of how others worship and understand God. We call this initiative “52 Churches” and I blog about the experience each Monday morning. However, friends frequently ask for more: “What are you learning,” “Is your journey changing,” or […]
When we made our list of churches to visit, we included everything found under the heading of “churches,” which we would adjust as needed. Next up is a “meditation group of self-realization fellowship.” Since our mission is to visit Christian churches, if there’s any evidence of this being a Christian community, we’ll check them out. […]
My wife and I are on track to start our “52 Churches” adventure this coming Sunday—look for my first update on Monday. As friends prayed about this, they prayed that we would have a positive impact on each of the 52 churches we visited. This surprised me. Though it is generally my goal to make […]