Monday, November 20, 2006

First Church of the Single Digits


Church attendance was down a bit this week. I counted nine of the faithful. It's true that the threat of a snow flurry on Monday has kept a few away. We have lost two important families. One was the associate pastor, education director, school principle and treasurer; the other family was the band. I like to think that the band is on the road and sometime between gigs they will reappear. It's to the point that when one family had a family emergency they didn't call for prayer; instead they called to tell the pastor why they weren't there on Sunday, just in case he thought another family left and was about to commit seppuku. Because of my social anxiety disorder I really don't like mega-churches. However, if the present trend continues our church may become a prayer closet. We visited a charismatic baptist church of about 600 people. I sat near the fire exit because I was worried about the combination of "big hair" and pyro-tecnics.

I may be called to teach Sunday School, since our present teacher winters in Florida. I've already assumed the position of "sound guy" and power point screw up. We are currently using a Nazarene book that no one likes so we are doing 3 chapters a week to get through it quicker. While visiting a Christian Book Store I discovered a book by John Eldredge called Waking The Dead. Being the cheap guy that I am I got it out of the library. On Amazon it got 4.5 stars and had 77 reviews. Seventy people loved it and gave it 5 stars and seven people thought it was straight from the PIT and gave it one star. So I read it and really liked it. Carol has started it and she really likes it so far. I have started reading his earlier book Wild At Heart and think it's even better than the later one. Most of the Christian Literature I consider tripe so I am really surprised how much I like this author. Maybe it helps that he agrees with me a lot. Anyway I found a good book to use for Sunday School while CP was looking for accompaniment CD's. I also came across a remarkable painting that depicts the "Foot Prints" poem. If you tilted your head at the correct angle you could see Jesus carrying Jimmy Buffet down the beach.

For now we will continue at our micro-fellowship. CP is singing in the Hendersonville Chorale and we are looking for a Weds. night Bible study; our Weds. night service is on hold till the new year. Membership has it's privileges. I hope we don't get the privilege of being the last ones to turn the lights off.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think this extended family should put out a book. Between all of us, we have too much to say on this subject. M-

Aunt Dot said...

Out here many of the churches are so big...there are alot of home meetings to make it more "accountable" and etc.

Anonymous said...

Say Babba, Did someone post "Ichabod" on the front door or something??

You could always come to "The Father's House" here in Chili. You get real live "worship" band and techno music blend complete with flashing and roaming colored lights, mirrored globe,strobe lights and smoke machine for a full night club effect. Roaming TV cameras and multiple flat screen TVs to make sure you can catch all the action.

Gotta admit, its a growing church but if it takes this much flash to get people interested in God someone here too is missing. The only thing they haven't tried was selling tickets or charging a cover charge to get in.

D

Babba-Gi said...

I prefer Biltmore Baptist where the angels fly around suspended from tracks in the ceiling. It sort of reminded me of the BMW plant in Greenville. Except that the The BMW plant has a greater impact on people's lives.

8:47 AM

Aunt Annie said...

We're doing Waking the Dead in our small group. For the first 100 pages, I kept saying I don't get it! Then all of a sudden something clicked and I really like it.