church hunting

so we're still pretty new in this town - only 6 months or so now
unfortunately, we still haven't found the right church for us.  we've officially now been to 14 churches.  that's right, 14.  there are at least that many sundays in 6 months - minus the days i had to work during church.
its been this wide variety of stuff.  we grew up episcopalian - but are not really interested much in that after the big split and the whole "Jesus isn't the only way" fiasco - so we've been branching out. 

i know i mentioned previously that we were looking for a church somewhere between animal sacrifice and laser light shows - and we've pretty much seen that full spectrum.  one of our earlier sundays we tried this megachurch in the closest suburb to where we live - mega-mania - starbucks in the lobby, kid check in with a key chain barcode, road cycling team signing up participants in the lobby -fully decked out in their "this is not a jewish synagogue spandex" - and then we went inside.  total rock concert - laser lights, smoke, flashing lights that shot out into the crowd - and the yelling.  i have this thing about when the pastor yells.  if you have to scream to make your point, its probably not that good of a point to begin with.  but we tried it - and found ourselves there for an actual rock concert the next month - well it was steven curtis chapman - but he did rock out (she made me go - but it was pretty good - if you could get past the 40 and 50 yr old chubby row behind us dancing) - so we haven't been back there yet

-this week was actually very entertaining.  a smaller non-denon church north of us.  decent worship, a little bit odd people and the pastor was hilarious.  a little too hilarious.  i definatetly felt like we were at stand-up night at a club.  he did my other main pet peeve of pastors - asking you constantly to repeat things to him.  "church say - power, say in the right - say freedom" - you know the whole congregation in unison - its kind of this weird hypnotist power that they have to command at will. ( i saw the light - and the light was green - green with money - give me your money)  i actually kinda like that church in a strange way, but there has to be some element of reverence or holiness - don't think i can go to the comedy club year round on sundays.  - he did say one thing i thought was pretty interesting - the pastor said, "get you screaming voices ready, your stomping feet ready, you clapping hands ready - because we are here for heaven practice every week.''  guess i never really thought of it that way, but it is an interesting concept.  church is heaven practice. In some ways i think that's probably pretty true - good thing i've got me good shoes on for the stomping

then there's been all in between - i was kinda kidding about the animal sacrifice stuff - but i'm sure we could find it here in town.  we're kinda narrowed to 2 presby churches and 2 nondenoms - still not sure - but they at least have reasonable mix of semicontemporary music and reasonable teaching.  one of those has a pastor that has cried in all 3 sermons we've heard from him- not sure about that one - its not necessarily at a very emotional moment either - i'm a little concerned about his stability - but its still on the list.

there's one downtown we like - good liturgy and teaching, but they only sing old hymns - i like a good old hymn every now and then - especially if its gots some contemporary pep - but this is drudgery and i'm pretty sure the pianist is playing them in slow motion.  the words kinda slowly crawl off the tongue to slow down to the beat.

i don't know where we'll end up.  just tired of searching.  thinking about giving in and going for the people and some solid Word.  its tough to think you're smack dab in the bible belt and can't find a church that doesn't give you the heebs or break into snore during the service.

my poor kids too- that's 14 different nurseries, 14 nursery ladies with crazy hair, weird smells, "safe for everyone" snacks, even stranger checkin policies (keychains, wristbands, bracelets, back stickers) and clowns painted on the wall - i'm pretty sure my 2 yr old thinks we go to the circus every sunday - mostly because sometimes its like that.

not sure where we'll end up, but we'll keep you posted on the adventure - and the snake charmers