Week #1 Floris United Methodist Church, Herndon, VA

We did it! We made it to church…once, um yay!? Brian was up and pressing his church pants before I even got back from the gym.  Not sure what led to the enthusiasm, perhaps the pressure of the 4 friends/family members who actually read our fist blog post, committing us to at least a half-ass effort at this.  Or perhaps it was that we chose an 11am service, and it was literally too late to sleep any more.  Or maybe it was the fact that Denver made it to the playoffs, and every 4^th quarter win Tebow pulls off seems to bring Brian one step closer to accepting Jesus Christ as his personal savior.  Regardless of why, we went; and our only real hesitation was what to wear.  Apart from the annual family Christmas trip, my last service was a Unitarian one, and I swear the lady next to me wore sweat pants, and apparently Brian’s last trip was to his friend Dre's church so he was contemplating a three piece red suit with matching red shoes.  In the end, we went business casual, and it was a good call.

OK Floris Methodist you’ve got your preverbal $h!T  together! (good thing I showered and didn’t wear sweat pants) Don’t believe me? check out their website, friend them on Facebook, follow them on Twitter or watch the podcast of today’s sermon (it was an enthusiast, relatable, albeit lengthy, look at forgiveness) http://florisumc.org/.  These folks know how to run a business, I mean church.  They have a “lost sheep” program; members sign in every week and if you’re out for more than 3 weeks in a row they give you a call  as a “reminder that your Floris family is thinking about you.”  Now that is a quality CRM in practice. They draw in hundreds of worshipers each service and apparently $200,000 in collection feta on Christmas Eve alone.  I ran a charity, do you have any idea how hard it is to get 200K in 24 hours? Impressive! Impressive, with good reason.

We had a feeling this was a good church.  I guess the first sign was the rented Fairfax county officer required to direct traffic before and after the service.  In the Church world I think this is one step below having your own traffic light, and you know what, that might just be a sign you are too big.  Floris, however, offered all of the amenities of a Southern mega church sans the weird cult vibe. 

They opened with a bell choir, chiming beautifully.  Then the kids came up for their, I don’t know…kids choir thing.  Highlighted by: child in bowtie, child in dad’s tie, and our favorite, child who spent the first half of the song turned around watching himself on the large projection screen behind the alter (oh did I mention there were large projection screens, two!) and the second half realizing that if he yelled into the microphone he would be the loudest one on the big screen.  Awesome!

Did you know that Methodists have alter girls? They do (I’m sure the profession is not gender exclusive, but today they were girls), they also say the Lord’s Prayer, and bonus (as appose to Catholicism) they had a piano not an organ, they spent 90% of the service communicating a relatable message, there was no excessive kneeling, the pastor wore a regular suit (probably a 42 regular when he should have worn a 40), but no robe, oh and best of all 1 of the 3 pastors was a chick.   All that and no one asked me to be “saved”. For the record there was about 4 minutes of optional kneeling; it was actually quite moving. Also for the record I was already saved in 1995 when a non-denomination church set up a fair at my high school and you had to be saved in order to participate in the sumo wrestling, the good kind with the giant suits, it was amazing. 

Overall, it was an excellent use of an hour and 15 minutes of our time.

Brian, post church still in his church pants and studying his own “bible” (the boGo ads at Harris Teeter).  I meant to take a picture at every church, but forgot until we got to the grocery store. Oh well there is always next week.