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Sunday, May 01, 2005::

Church Visitation

I've had a few shcoked faces when I informed everyone that I'm going to be visiting churches for a little while. "Why?!" was the general response. I'll make it clear that it's NOT because I don't like Family Life. I just felt tugged to do it. It's kind of like an educational experience. I think some people are afraid that I'm going to leave them for another church. I have no desire to leave them. But whereever God puts me is where I'll be, regardless of friends. I am not searching for a new "home". Here are my general rules for visiting churches:

- I will only visit churches on Sundays (unless I have no other choice). Wednesdays I will still be attending Family Life Church.
- I will only visit certain church that I have a RIDE for. Because I have no transportation of my own, and have no help from my parentals.
- After attending whatever church it may be for the first time, I'll report on it, how it made me feel, what I liked about it, funny stories and such. This is not to judge it nessisarily, I'm not going to bring any church down. But every church has a feel, and so... onward:

I'm going to tell you about the first time I attended Family Life Church and how it made me "feel":

Family Life Church
I remember the first time I went was because Ross invited me to go. I hadn't been to church in years, mostly because no one had ever invited me. When I came in it was dark in the youth room. I was a little bit late. I didn't really feel very welcome, it seemed like people were just glaring at me. Durring worhsip the music was nice, it wasn't like the hymes that we sang at the Baptist church from long ago. People were raising their hands in worship. Weird. But I was open minded, so besides thinking it was weird it didn't frighten me away. The preaching was energetic, and it was easy to pay attention to. (also note that this was a Wednesday service, whcih is different than a Sunday service)


Today I visited a church that's not my own:

Church of Christ
Amy Kemmerling invited me to come to her church as my first church visitation, I'd heard a lot about her church and it was on the list of the ones I really wanted to visit. Though, I knew it wasn't going to be much like my church. The class enviroment was...cozy. They had couches and comfy chairs around a room. I felt generally welcomed. No one gave me evil stares or seemed to judge me, so I felt pretty comfortable. Durring the main service the worship was only voices, as I was already expecting because I had alreayd been informed. It wasn't too odd, we did the same thing at the Baptist church. Still it was kinda hard for me to get used to hearing the off-keys from myself and the people behind me. For a moment I kinda felt a vibe like I'd gone back to puritan times, int he book "The Scarlet Letter". They asked if anyone was new in the church and if we raised our hands we would get a gift. Amykins told me to raise my hand. I kinda laughed and I asked Amy if it was food. And they came up to me and handed me a small loaf of bread. O_O HOLY COW. IT WAS FOOD! haha, I don't know about you...but I thought that was great.
Concluding notes: My little sister says she wants to go next time, for the mothers day thing. She also found out that one of her best friends goes to that church. So maybe we'll visit again next week.

-out-

-: Amy Kelley blogged it up at 1:56 PM:-