I will never go to another church without checking their website more thoroughly! Our friend Karen checked it out and saw a prophecy section I didn't see. Where members post their prophecies and then the elders vote on whether they are true prophecies of God. I guess some of them were interesting and this should have clued me in on this not being a church we would enjoy, but when I went on the site briefly to get the service time, I just saw some stuff about healing & channeling the spirit. Well...lets just say we will not be going back. It was so bad we had to sneak out. I left the sanctuary with Hannah, made up an excuse to get Ethan out of childcare, and Marcus met me at the car a few minutes later. If we had stayed we could have been there all day! Seriously! And hour of worship to start, lots of meditating on verses of songs for in my opinion an excessive amount of time, flags waving, spontaneous congregant prayer & outbursts, prophecies being revealed and any minute I could feel a person speaking in tongues coming on, so I needed to leave. After worship they prayed for a missionary & that took about twenty minutes and then they started worshipping again. The "teachings" hadn't even begun. We have a baby, we can't just sit in church all day. It's not that I don't believe that people can be healed in church, or that people can get visions from God or even that the holy spirit might cause a person to speak in tongues. I just didn't personally feel the presence of God with all the distractions they were creating for me. I didn't want to make them feel bad about how they seek God, so we left before I couldn't help my self from having an outburst of laughter or have a smirk on my face. It was a little out of my comfort zone. It just didn't feel authentic to me. I come from a Presbyterian church that made the transition from traditional to contemporary as I was growing up, so I occasional clap, close my eyes or sway, but I'm not much of a hand raiser, flag waver or dancer. But that's just ME. Please keep our church search in your prayers, thanks!
Stolpps signing off...
sounds crazy. Have you not been totally pleased with the presbytarian churches you have visited?
ReplyDeleteWe liked Sherwood and that is the only Presbyterian church we'v attended so far. We have a few on the list to try that we haven't made it to, but some are farther than we'd like to go for church each week. Sunset is in Beaverton off the 26 and is a big box church. We'd like to find a smaller congregation but one that isn't so small that it doesn't have programs for young families & good childcare during services. I'd also like to find a moms group. I am going to try one out on Thursday affiliated with a Lake Oswego Presbyterian church but they only have one contemporary service and it's at 8am. Too hard to get everyone ready to make it that early. There is talk of a night service but Marcus isn't really interested in attended church at night. We will just have to keep looking. But we may end up back at Sherwood which wouldn't be that bad. I just wish their pastor wasn't on sabbatical so I had a better idea of what they normally are like. The sermon & pastor matter a lot to us. that's probably first on our priority list and then worship, then childcare & programs. I would love to find a church with an active men's ministry for Marcus. Like maybe one with pick up basketball. Keep prayng for us please, love you!
ReplyDeleteI will keep praying as always. I love you. I will call. I will. Hard time for me right now. I'm not ignoring you. Love ya.
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