Week 6.5 Reston Bible Church

You may have noticed that it has been a while since the last installment of oneChurchaWeek. You see what had happened was…we spent one weekend on a cruise and well that’s all I’ve got excuse wise. This was not meant to stop us, I swear to you, I was ready for cruise ship church.  We* are Royal Caribbean platinum members so I’ve read enough Cruise Compass daily activity guides to know one bar somewhere on the boat is a church for about 60 minutes on Sunday morning, and I was determined to find it and pray I could bring my Bahama-mama to the service.    

*”We” are actually not both members, I’ve been perpetually too lazy to call and get my member number so only Brian has actually registered for the perks.**

**By “perks” I mean one free drink coupon, that you have to ask your room attendant to bring every time, because they somehow always "forget" to have it in the room.    

To my dismay, this was a short cruise on one of the fleet’s smaller ships, so all Sunday morning offered was some 8am blackjack and Coors Light in a bottle shaped can or the Joel Osteen telecast.  I can do a lot of things, I’ve eaten cricket tacos, I’ve worked in a public housing project, I landed in the Cairo airport in a tank-top and shorts (at the same time as an airbus from Saudi Arabia where I literally accounted for 90% of the exposed female skin in the terminal) the point is I’ll do a lot of things, but we are not deep enough into this little experiment for me to watch a Joel Osteen telecast.  I actually forgot which one was Joel Osteen, so I did google him, and holy hair-gel I was not about to watch that on my vacation. 

Side note we were in Florida and on the cruise following a wedding that was held on Thursday in a church, but then we left the service early to help coordinate the reception set up.  Regardless, I’m pretty sure half of a Catholic wedding ceremony combined with googling Joel Osteen pretty much counts as church.

That brings us to week #6.5 back home and ready for slightly less of a copout.  I said Baptist and remembered one near Costco.  So we were off.  We didn’t particularly dress up, but who needs to these days.  I’d looked up the church and it looked pretty multi-cultural, the pastor was black and it looked like his wife was Chinese.  Never once did I think through the oxymoron that is “Baptist and multi-cultural” I thought it would be good.  As we pull into the parking lot, Brian turns to me and asks “is this a black church.” “No” I reply with the same ungrounded confidence I have in my ability to fix electronics, bake and do any number of things I have no business doing.  This is what follows

Brian: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Of course, his wife is Korean or something, and the guy in that car over there is white”

Brian: “I think he’s just turning around in the parking lot”

Me: (turning my head to follow his car) “yup, yup he is”   

Brian: “Have you ever heard of a non-black church with an African-American preacher.”

Me: “Of course”

Brian: “name one”

Me: “Lots of them, what does it matter?”

Brian: “Have you ever been to a black church”

Me: “nope”

Brian: “I’m not going in there in jeans, every guy will be in a suit”

Me: “that lady over there is wearing jeans”

Brian: “too bad, what is plan B, we can come here next week in better clothes”

Me: “there was a cop directing traffic a few miles back”

Brian: “do you want to look it up’

Me: “no I’m sure it’s fine”

Turns out it was.  Cops don’t have a lot to do in Northern Virginia on a Sunday morning so if you see one in the street it is a good sign that there is some Jesus worshiping  nearby.  The downside of going to a random church that is just on the way to the one you planned to go to…is it might end up being exactly like one you already went to.

Week 6.5 Reston Bible Church, yup, you’re right, the last blog was McLean Bible Church.  If nothing else it should validate that the conversation above actually took place, I don’t just make this stuff up.  It turns out that Reston Bible Church is kinda the emo rock little brother to McLean Bible Church.  I think just by attending, we brought the average age of the congregation up about a year and a half.  As expected, the first 30 minutes was a Jesus themed alternative rock concert.  The front man even sported a mohawk  on top of a buttoned up cardigan on top of a graphic print tee, on top of fitted designer jeans, on top of red sneakers.  Indi rock all day long, well for about 30 minutes until it gave way to the preacher.  He could easily be the grandfather of 90% of his followers.  To be honest, his sermon was a lot like a grandpa story.  It was a long, rambling mixture of events that supposedly happened years ago and some stuff going on today. Except he was not drawing from depression era memories of soup lines or turning in scrap metal to support the war effort, he was going on and on about Abraham and Lot maybe or just “a lot” about Abraham.  I’m not sure really, I did gather that non believers are going to hell.  That was definitely mentioned, but I knew that from the last Bible Church visit, give me something new. 

Oh I did learn something new:  “advancing the kingdom”  it is emo church for “convert the hedonist.”  I also learned that evangelicals think that “the first time a subject is mentioned in the bible, expresses God’s view on the subject.”  That seems like a sound judgment call, and helps with selective literal interpretations that we touched on in my last blog.  I know I’m writing this a few days after the church service, but I’m not misquoting that, I wrote it down.  I heard that, out of everything, out of 40 minutes about Abraham, I heard that, woke right up, got out a pen a scribbled it on the bulletin right over the prayer request for a kid who got a concussion and broken ankle while snowboarding and whose mom is still seeking Christ.  One more time…“the first time a subject is mentioned in the bible, expresses God’s view on the subject.” All the other times, eh not so much.  God’s view is only in the context of the first time something is mentioned. 

To prove how logical that really is, I wanted to find the first page of the bible and enlighten you all on how God feels about some subject, probably the creation, I would assume that is one page one.  I’m way too lazy to walk upstairs and search the office bookshelves for a bible, a search that I’m sure would be in vain (sorry Grandma). Instead I googled, so I apologize if this is contextually incorrect, but this is how God feels about earth:  “earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.”  Done, that is how he feels, God thinks earth is void darkness.  At least the King James God does, I’m done web searching so I’m sticking with that.  Also when I searched for “first page of the bible” I found the following and thought it was funny enough to paste in here:

The Real First Page of the Bible

They recently discovered a smaller scroll hidden in the cylinder of the first scroll of the ancient Biblical scriptures, believed to be the actual "first page" of the Bible. When deciphered, it read:

"Copyright (c) 300 B.C. God. All Rights Reserved First scrawling First-Sunrise-After-Stonehenge-Keystone-Is-Shadowed, 300 B.C.

All beings, places and events depicted in this work are fictional, and any resemblance to actual beings, places and events past, present or future is purely coincidental.

WARNING: Some of the actions performed in this work are dangerous and should only be attempted by professionals familiar with the action in question.

NOTE: Those tiny points of light in the sky when it gets dark are called 'stars'. Some of them do blow up on occasion. In no way should this be construed as a sign that there is, beneath such an explosion, any form of savior. Should such a misconstrual happen, the author will not be held responsible for the avalanche of arrogance, zeal, bigotry, humanocentricity and other vile acts which will surely follow the residents of the planet into time eternal until someone sees fit to erase the denizens of the world and let the author start over.

DSBN 0-000000-0000-1

Suggested retail: 1 sheep."

Week #5 McLean Bible Church

In 2004, Fox News aired an interview with a converted Jew who now leads a congregation of close to twenty thousand Evangelical Christians in McLean, VA.   I was familiar with this interview because I get all of my news from Fox News, and by that I mean the Fox News clips played satirically on the Daily Show every night.  (Side note, if your Fox News watching does not come with John Stewart’s commentary please, please keep in mind that the journalistic merit of actual Fox News is on par with Comedy Central news.  They are both entertainment stations…gasps, yes!  If you want fact checked reporting, put down the remote and read something, anything...not this, anything else)  

Back to the interview that brought us to McLean Bible Church.  It was not unlike most Fox News interviews, two white guys in red ties talking about Jesus or lower taxes (those two mean the same thing right?).  This particular interview commenced with a sermon snippet proclaiming that “God is not looking for big shots or prima donnas,” which is logical because the pastor leads the 8^th largest congregation in the US and speaks weekly on stage in front of a thousand’s of loyal followers and is viewed streaming live to even more. 

Who is this meek, humble leader and where can you hear him speak?  Rev. Lon Solomon and week # 5’s McLean Bible Church!

McLean Bible Church started the way I’m sure all religious traditions began: on an LSD fueled stroll through Chapel Hill, NC, someone handed Lon Solomon  a Jesus pamphlet, he read it, shaved his Jew-fro, smoked the rest of his stash and a mega church was born.

This visit did confirm the mega church service agenda of 30 minutes of music followed by 30 minutes of bible based preaching, followed by mingling at the church cafeteria, coffee house, book store, recruitment desk, restaurant, kids lounge, teen lounge, JcPenny, H&M, Chinese restaurant with the free toothpick of bourbon chicken, or one of the other mall-ish amenities.  There truly was something for everyone.  There were 3 separate services at one time in one church.  There was the rock concert followed by bible based preaching service telecast live on a projection screen, the teen rock concert followed by bible based preaching telecast live on a projection screen, or the full out symphony orchestra followed by bible based preaching actually live.  We chose the latter, and no joke there were timpani drums and a rain stick.  What’s that, you are hearing impaired?  No worries, there was a sign language interpreter, an interpretive interpreter to be exact.  

This visit also confirmed the organization behind running a successful mega church. This one had a traffic light and a cop, and a parking garage.  If you get lost on your way to the service and end up in the bookstore, don’t worry, an usher will escort you to an open seat, which for us was row #1 (we are always on time for things).  No joke, we sat front row; best orchestra seats I’ve ever had.  These seats were not for the uncommitted, the guy next to me read along from his personal bible as the performers sang.   Who brings a book to a concert?!

Anyways, I know people love this stuff, they flock in by the thousands. They wake up early, get dressed, drive on the toll road, park in a parking garage and then watch a sermon on a video screen.  I can wrap my head around some of it, the casual dress code, the free child care, the post church lattes, but that selective literal interpretation of the bible still throws me off every time.    

Sure we can talk about Leviticus 20:13 which states "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination." But Leviticus 19:19 also says “Don't wear clothes made of more than one fabric” and “Don't have a variety of crops on the same field.  I think there is something about killing those of different faiths, not making whoopee during your wife’s special time and something about shellfish.  I do agree with one of those last three, but you get the point.  When anyone takes anything too literally it makes me a bit nervous. 

This service did do a good job of relating the literal interpretation into a real life experience.  The sermon was about when God says “no.”  It is a valuable point, admittedly it even tied into the verse of the day about Paul having a thorn in his side, and the music was pretty good.

Still history has not shown positive results from literal interpretations, or thousands keenly following the words of one…But who am I to argue, if this is what makes you feel fulfilled, or is the reason you volunteer, or give to the poor then I say follow all you want. 

McLean Bible Church aerial photo…

Oops sorry, wrong photo, that’s the pastor’s home.*

*that is kind of a low blow, sorry, sorta.

Week #4 -Unitarians Unite

So if you are a Christian conservative with poor reading comprehension skills (the only reason you’d still be reading this blog) you can skip this entry.  Because this Sunday er Saturday we went to a church whose congregation will be at the Fairfax County courthouse on Wednesday to support Marge and Sue as they apply for a marriage license. 

Nope not “Bet Mishpachah, a congregation for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Jews and all who wish to participate in an inclusive, egalitarian, and mutually supportive community.” I didn’t find that place until my 11am web search and the service was at 10, no worries, we're saving that for another week…OK one more clue, there were bongo drums and the sermon was on immigrant rights…

Are you guessing??????

You got it, Unitarian Universalists (UU)!  Obviously this was not a new experience for me, of any religion, UU best reflects my actual spiritual believes.  I know I’m with kin by the fist bumper sticker on the first Volvo in the parking lot.  They promote equality, social justice, the value of nature, the greater connectivity of all people, it is almost surreal to attend a service so in line with my beliefs, and also a little surreal to sit through an entire church service with no mention of Jesus. 

Here is where the UU’s went right:

There are seven principles which Unitarian Universalist congregations affirm and promote:

•          The inherent worth and dignity of every person;
•          Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;
•          Acceptance of one another and encouragement of spiritual growth in our congregations;
•          A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;
•          The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in     society at large;
•          The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;
•          Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Here is where the UU’s went wrong:

•        Procreation

Let’s face it, how do modern religious traditions sustain growth? By spreading the truth? By evangelizing? By manipulating the poor and uneducated?  Getting closer, but those are all a lot of work, you need to print bibles, pay for airfare to Micronesia, buy airtime on cable access…sure that will get you recruits, but it is also exhausting.  How can you build a congregation of followers without all of that effort?  Simple, lots and lots of missionary…style between a married husband and wife.   Yup, if you want your congregation to grow, ban birth control, gay marriage, and sex ed. in schools, or just let your men take many wives (ensuring the wives can’t read, vote or work helps too).  Catholics, Muslims, cults, Mormons and just about every religion except the Unitarians seems to have caught on to this.  How and why have the UUs gone so wrong?

It’s simple really, when your congregation is largely socially conscience, over educated  Ph.Ds, I mean the people who literally pay for free public radio, you’re just not going to sustain the generational growth of say a Jackson, Mississippi Pentecostal Church of Christ.  No one in this group is having more than 1.7 children (counting the golden retriever).  It also doesn’t help to be so accepting of the gays…seriously how many new followers do you expect to get out of that, maybe one Vietnamese child per couple or perhaps a minority foster child.   Regardless, they’ll both grow up and want to “reconnect to their heritage” and head straight for Buddhism or Christianity.  Oh and not to mention, you raised them to be open minded and accepting of religious traditions, never once guilting them into following your belief’s…back to recruitment square one. 

I’m not going to lie, I always feel inspired to do more for my community after a Unitarian service.  And they provide no shortage of opportunities to volunteer, but somehow all that Brian took away was “why are we the youngest people here? And why are there only two other men?”  I blamed the fact that we were at a 4:30pm Saturday service, but honestly I think this would be a great spiritual home for a lot of folks who just don’t know about it.  The message needs to be spread!  However, that is never going to happen unless the Unitarians get their heads in the game and start pandering elitism, a bit more close mindedness and some natural family planning brochures* like everyone else.

*Natural family planning is where all of those Catholic babies come from, I’m pretty sure.  

Week #3-Mormon Week-The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

We were excited for the Sunday when we would walk in and everyone would know we were intruders among the believers.  That Sunday came early, and unexpectedly not in the form of us attending Sri Venkateswara Lotus Temple, but at church #3 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, you guessed it (or read my facebook post) we went Mormon,  for one major and one minor reason.  Minor reason: a Mormon could seriously be president of this United States…Major reason: Brian’s 2009 Halloween costume. 

Like most Americans who do not live in Utah or open their door to strangers, my knowledge of the Mormon faith comes largely from the always judicious Trey Parker and Matt Stone.  If you lack even this basic background on the faith, you have two choices before you proceed with this blog:  If you are wealthy, well connected and frequent Midtown Manhattan, you can catch Trey and Matt’s acclaimed Broadway production The Book of Mormon.  If not, take 22 minutes and watch Season 7 Episode 12 of South Park, the Mormon episode.  http://www.southparkstudios.com/full-episodes/s07e12-all-about-mormons (Side note some knowledge can also be gleaned from the 1997 cinematic masterpiece Orgazmo).

Ok, now that you are up to speed, I will not need to spend the next 10,000 words describing the logical and grounded history and belief’s of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (LDS)- I believe this is their official name, or at least what they put on the sign in front so the uneducated Evangelicals don’t know to judge them as “non-Christians” when they drive by in their Chevy Suburbans with their “Gun Control Means Using Both Hands” and “Welcome to America Now Speak English” bumper stickers .  For those of you who haven’t taken the time to watch South Park, skipping the common knowledge, here are some random facts about Mormanism that I knew going in: 

•   Mormons are in fact Christians, yup that means they believe in the same Jesus that you do
•  Mormons do not drink coffee, tea or alcohol (I too abstained from coffee before the service, not particularly out of reverence, but because our stupid orange cat literally knocked my coffee off of the end table this morning onto the carpet and after cleaning up that mess I was kinda over coffee and that cat)
•  The individual churches don’t have websites, they all direct you to the main LDS site
• They believe in contemporary prophets- that there are prophets alive today with us
• They do believe that Jesus stopped somewhere in the American Midwest prior to his ascension into heaven - and why wouldn’t he, there are great state fairs with fried Oreo’s, its where Balki from Mypo’s settled on the show Perfect Strangers, and is home to the world’s largest mall
•  Mormon men do not have more than one wife, well none that I’ve met.
• They are all crazy nice

Armed with that information and about 17 additional minutes of web surfing, we dove right in to week #3.  Thankfully, in that 17 minutes I stumbled on a site mentioning that you can “wear any modest clothes you are comfortable in to a service, but most women wear skirts and most men shirts and ties”.  Good thing because we soon discovered that if you want to be “comfortable” you better have a tie and a skirt below your knees.  I, however, do not own a skirt that goes below my knees for two reasons: I’m barely 5 feet tall and it simply is not a flattering look for my body type, and well, I’m not a Mormon.  We phoned in our modestly just enough to past muster, and the first couple to greet us were none the wiser, even asking us what “ward” we were from.  A “ward” is kinda like a group of churches I mean “meeting houses” the local “wards” make up the “stake” which is like a diocese I guess.  Oh, did I mention the Mormons also apparently have their own language.  Brian is in sales so he breezed right through that conversation.  I see why people get into this religion too, the people are really, really nice.  I mean who wouldn’t want to be around insanely nice people, Brian was eating it up.  Only a judgmental cynic would be uncomfortable here, needless to say, I was eyeing the exits. 

So the actual service was interesting.  There was a minor validation of one factoid I read.  Apparently the church can volunteer random members for random service projects. Today one young couple was volunteered for something (not sure what) and the congregation was asked to affirm (scratch that “manifest”) their assignment.  We raised our hands and said “manifest away” – we’ll never be here again so they can’t mandate that we do anything.

 The hymns were soft and akin to any traditional Christian religion.  It was our first week without a megatron TV, actually there were no icons at all, no stained glassed windows and no paintings on the wall, there wasn’t even a cross at the altar, nothing but a ficus.  The order was also different than most other Christian services (thankfully there was a program this time so we knew that from the onset).  After just two hymns, we were on to communion….I know already!?  However, there was no communion line or even background music, instead 6 blonde 12 year-old boys delivered it aisle by aisle in metal baskets surrounded only by the sound of crying babies. (Mormons believe in the whole family worshiping together, so no baby cry room, and they have lots of babies so apparently no concern for the ears of one time church crashers either). 

So after we all ate some Jesus, and I thought we were about to move to the next phase, the boys returned to the altar and came back ready to distribute the “symbolic” blood of Christ.  I say symbolic because I’m sure there were no mini-shot glasses of holy water at the Last Supper.  I should have guessed that there would not be wine, but part of me was still hoping.  In the end, I think the line system is a bit more efficient, but the mini-shot glasses were definitely more hygienic.  Brian also preferred the torn up wheat bread to the traditional Styrofoam wafers (sparing me from hearing that these should be BBQ flavored).  Actually, I’m not sure who tore up that bread so I may take back the hygienic comment.

After communion, we moved on to some more hymns and the speakers.  There were 3 different members who spoke as appose to the traditional one preacher.  I loved that, actually the whole service was very inclusive of many members which was awesome.  The first two speakers were even women (actually the first was a 11ish year-old girl).  They spoke on the weekly topic and their experience with Jesus, it was emotional and beautiful, but the weekly topic brought you right back to the fact that this was a Mormon church.  This week’s topic was “the pre-existence” and our “pre-mortal lives”.  What?! you say… Mormons believe in a life preceding our existence on earth.  Mormons call this the “pre-existence,” “pre-earth-life,” or “pre-mortal existence.” Before we were born on the earth, we lived in the presence of our Heavenly Father as His spirit children. In this pre-mortal existence, we attended a council with Heavenly Father’s other spirit children. At that council, Heavenly Father presented His great plan of happiness or the “Plan of Salvation, which was ratified by all of us.”

So yeah, that is what the speakers talked about, different, but interesting.  All three read from a pre-written paper, but I’m not sure if that was a function of public speaking skills or tradition.  I will say that 11-year-old girl has quite a future ahead of her, and the second women spoke of a very difficult situation that her beliefs got her through, and it was touching and I watered up.  The last speaker apparently left a D1 soccer scholarship to do his mission, I guess that was meant to be touching too, but all I was thinking is that I would cry too if I left an opportunity like that to ride a bike around Deltona, FL for 2 years getting doors slammed in my face. 

Oh so that was only hour #1 of 3, and that is all we had in us.  The next two hours were Sunday school followed by Woman’s Relief Society (which I gather does good for society).  Thankfully a few members also left at that point, but the welcome committee did invite us to stay.  It was like that episode of The Office at Pam and Jim’s kid’s baptism when Michael is enamored by the niceness and energy of the people at the church that he decides to jump on the missionary bus.  I see why people believe and want to be a part of this, regardless of what modern archeologists or historians have to say.   

Week #2 Mega Church – Northland – A Church Distributed Longwood, FL

Do not fear, mom, Stephanie B. and the 6 other people who read week #1 of one church a week!  We didn’t forget, and I normally don’t quit hobbies for at least 3 weeks (unless the hobby requires a capital investment of some sort, such as golf clubs or a road bike) those I normally quit in about 4 days.  However, you’re in luck because church hopping and blogging are free*, so week number 2 of our exploration into religion in America, game on! I was just visiting Florida over the weekend and didn’t have time to transform scribble on the back of a church bulletin into semi-coherent blog babble until now.

There are several things you typically do when in Florida: check in with your parole officer to ensure you’re in full compliance with Megan’s Law, wear flip flops to work, drive 5 below the speed limit in the left lane, tattoo a dolphin on your ankle, vote republican even if you’re Spanish and spend your Sunday morning in a church twice the size of a football stadium.  I only did the last one.

Week #2 Mega Church – Northland – A Church Distributed Longwood, FL

There were a few major reasons I chose Northland: it was about half a mile from where I was staying, the pastor is continually named one of the most influential people in Orlando and the church is located literally across the street from the dog track, on Dog Track Road no less.  No joke, the address is 530 DOG TRACK ROAD.  To your right: khaki pants, collared polos, plush theater seating and a full band with Lady Gaga quality production and lighting joyfully singing praise to the Lord.  To your left (I can only assume)  folding chairs, several cans of Natural Ice, receding hairlines, sweat pants and a morning wondering how you made such poor decisions after high school.  For my Orlando readers, please note these directions are coming from State Road 1792, Northland is on the right.

Nothing spells I’m ready for church like a night of drinking Champagne out of a red Solo cup, playing beer pong on a dining room table and a 1am stop at Mohammed's...or was it Jose’s hot dog cart.  So despite my ambitious plans to make it to the 9am service, I rolled in promptly at 10:59, and the army of walkie-talkie clad parking officials proceeded to direct me through the paved parking, past the gravel parking to grass parking annex Yellow 7.  On the drive, I did, however, pass my new favorite church parking lot, one you would never see at a Catholic church: “single parent parking.”  I guess the Catholics have single mother parking too, it is located anywhere except the family driveway because your disgraceful behavior has embarrassed us all. 

Speaking of Catholics, I must insert week #1’s correction, brought to you by my brother’s mother-in-law whose husband is a Catholic Deacon.  I mistakenly alluded to the fact that Catholics have organs and Methodists have pianos.  Turns out that Catholics also have pianos.  But the only music I remembered from my childhood Catholic church prompted my Dad’s weekly joke that the organist should take her mittens off before she played…The music was pretty bad, maybe even as bad as that joke, every week. 

So Northland…once inside, I found the first available aisle seat, to allow for an early departure (missing the 9am in favor of pancakes, coffee and Motrin put me behind schedule and I had family to visit). I then texted Brian the picture below: (Brian who by the way sat at home in Virginia watching football instead of going to church).

He immediately texted back “shut up, are you at a football game or a rock concert right now?”…literally, I swear on all that is holy, 4 seconds later I was at the latter.  The lights dimmed, the strobes came on and I spent the next 35 minutes at the best Christian rock concert I’ve ever been to, well the only Christian rock concert I’ve ever been to, but it was good.  I can see why people drive from Jacksonville to attend these services.  It is like a free concert every week.  Actually, I take that back, prior to the band the word “tithing” was mentioned several times.  For those of you non-believers “tithing” is giving one tenth of one's income to a religious group.  So in realty, Northland would actually be the most expensive concert series you’ll ever attend. 

The music was fantastic, but I’d been there for a solid 45 minutes, and I was not really sure where we were in the agenda.  Was it all singing with some reading thrown in? Was there going to be a sermon at some point, a group prayer maybe?  I didn’t want to miss anything good, but I had some leaving early to do.  There was no way I was about to battle that post-church rush, and I needed time to fire up google maps if I planned to navigate back to my car. 

The Methodists at least gave us a program with an itinerary, and every Catholic knows how to leave early.  (After communion, you just follow the line, keep your head down and when you pass your pew keep walking straight for the door.  The Mass is pretty much over at that point anyway, and I’m sure the priest understands that you have your purse with you because you are worried about pick pockets and your coat is on because it is cold.)

Regardless, I know when to cut out of a Catholic church, and I had no clue here.  The singing had given way to the lead guitarist interjecting some bible verses followed by more singing.  The kind people get into, arms in the air and everything.  Finally the sermon, I wasn’t sure how long it would last or if there was anything scheduled after, but I was glad for the familiar. I knew it was the pastor because his name was prominently displayed on the drive-in sized screen behind the stage (there was no altar, only a stage and stage props and Mezzanine seating).

I was a bit skeptical going in, I’m still not sold on religions that are younger than I am (or even close).  And Northland appeared to be one of those non-denominational churches. Their mission is pretty much just to bring people to Christ…lots of people, close to 15,000.   This was the South, this was a mega church, two things that do not scream open mindedness.  But Northland’s pastor, Dr. Joel C. Hunter, has made a solid effort, focusing on social justice, environmental issues and even working with the Obama administration.  There was still a general feeling that if you don’t believe in Jesus you’ll have a less than comfortable eternity, but the preaching was pretty good.  Well the first 3/4 of it was pretty good, that is all the longer I lasted.  I figured an hour was long enough. If I had a program, or idea of the typical length, or even the sacrament of holy communion, I may have stayed longer, but I had places to be and no real idea how long we'd be there.  People were still coming into the building, and that was not a good sign for my post-church plans.  Granted they could have still been trekking in from parking lot 9 Purple.    

In summary, if you plan to attend Northland, get there early, or bring a doll or small stuffed animal to pass as a single parent, block off about 76 minutes and 55 seconds (I can only assume all the services are precisely that length), and get ready for a 50/50 blend of Christian rock and bible based preaching, and if that’s not your thing, just cross the street and put your money on Santa’s Little Helper. 

*we do always contribute to the collection.  I’ve explained to Brian that Jesus does not need a coupon for two for one at Lee’s Drycleaners or a free blooming onion with the purchase of an entree, so we typically give cash.  

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.

Selecting a Church

Wow, selecting the first church is a big decision.  It could make or break this whole exercise.  I need to ensure it is interesting enough to write about, entertaining enough to make Brian go to church for 51 more weeks and exciting enough to make me wake up and shower before 11am on a Sunday…Ahhhh this is a major decision, way too much pressure… I chose the same time tested research method that got me through undergrad and grad school…Google.com search:  “Church 20171” (our zip code) and we’re going to the first one on the list: Floris United Methodist Church, Herndon, VA

If nothing else, we should find it OK (it’s huge and we drive by it just about every day), we shouldn’t be late because we could literally walk there, and we should blend in better than we would at the second one on the list 워싱톤 한인 장로 교회 (박성일 목사) Korean Church)…