Let me recap: Small town girl. Grew up in small, small ghost-town church. Traveling from church to church each Sunday this year to experience worship of God in a variety of ways in a variety of settings. This church was WAY out of my element! I'm pretty sure it is actually bigger than my entire hometown. Literally! (As our oldest would say.)
According to their website, the church offers 5 different opportunites for worship on Sunday mornings. There's a liturgical service in the chapel (which is approximately the size of a "normal" church back home), 2 blended services in the Sanctuary, and 2 contemporary services in The Venue (a more modern sanctuary setting with chairs instead of pews and a lighted stage, etc.). I read the girls the introductions of each service actually thinking they would want the more contemporary style and was surprised when they chose the Sanctuary, primarily due to its mix of choir, symphony, and praise team for the music.
We arrived about 20 minutes early because we knew we'd need a little time to find our way around and discovered that 20 minites was not nearly early enough. We planned to attend the 10:45 service and couldn't believe the number of cars in the parking lot when we arrived. We drove around and around searching for a spot to park, and finally as people started exiting from the previous service we pulled into a place as I joked that we were going to need a tour guide to find our way around. Turns out that was no joke!
Our tour guide came in the form of a sweet teenager who rather than attempt to explain where to take our youngest (who insisted once again on going to children's church) offered to lead us there herself. Thank goodness! So off we went across the city, uhm church. Our perky guide click-clicking her way quickly in front while I huffed and puffed and half drug our six year old in an attempt to keep up and my husband and older girls walked somewhere behind us refusing to be rushed. After passing by the Sanctuary and a huge Atrium, a Coffee Bar to rival any Starbucks, and a Library and Bookstore, our guide showed us to a children's hallway, shrugged her shoulders and apologized for not knowing exactly where we were supposed to go, and disappeared.
Oh, well, no problem. We're adults. We can surely figure this out.
So we continued down a long hall with a vast number of doors until I found one labeled "Kindergarten" and got in line behind some other kids and parents. However, when we reached the front of the line, we found out that we were not in fact in the right place yet, and were instructed to go to the main check in desk....down the hall, around the corner, up the stairs, and to the left? right? We eventually found it and went through all the necessary paperwork to check our child into a classroom for one Sunday....including the entire family's birthdays and medical history. Whew! At last, we had a barcode for our child and another for ourselves and we went back from whence we came. Waited in line at the same door as before and discovered again that we were in the wrong place. Fortunately the new room was just two doors down because to be honest by this point, I was about to load everyone up and head home.
We finally reached the sanctuary a couple songs into the service, entered from a side door, sat down, and breathed. Holy COW!! This place was incredible! Beautiful! Huge! (I know I keep saying that but really!) At the top of the stage was a choir loft a large choir, below them was an orchestra of instruments and their players, and in front of them about 10 men and women made up a group of worship music leaders. Screens all around displayed the words of the songs, and the music was astounding. There's was a mixture of contemporary music and hymns. Most we knew and the ones we didn't were easy to catch on to.
When the music was complete, there was a time to greet those around us, and a few people shook our hands, but no one introduced themselves or asked who we were and I realized that in a church that size it would be next to impossible to know if someone was there for the first time. The bulletin provided a form for visitors and members to fill out and recommended that we turn in our questions, comments, and prayer requests and that we visit the information and welcoming centers throughout the church. We didn't, but I'm sure that if we weren't simply visiting we would have very much appreciated the opportunities to connect.
Around this time, our middle daughter decided she absolutely couldn't wait to go to the restroom, so I slipped out the back with her and walked a block (slight exaggeration alert) to the nearest, returning in time to the hear the last of a beautiful song by a very talented vocalist and see a large screen lower in the center and a talking head come on. Jason and I looked at each other in surprise. We had been expecting a flesh and blood pastor, but it made since that with more than one service going at once, this was the only way he could be two places at once.
This particular morning, Pastor Grubbs chose to preach from the book of Jonah, and our entire family listened and laughed and learned throughout the message. It was a truly great sermon about a God of Second Chances, and I'd encourage you to watch it at http://crossingsokc.org/mci/a-god-of-second-chances/.
The service ended with an invitation to pray at the alter or light a candle at one of the many stations throughout the room, and mostly to consider our Nineveh's and ask God for a second chance to love them.
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