Churches Move and Things Change
We started visiting fifty-two churches the Sunday after Easter. We celebrated the resurrection of Jesus at our home church and then slipped away for a year, visiting a different Christian church every Sunday for a year.
At least that’s the quick way to explain our journey.
We doubled up on two weekends, visiting one church on Saturday and another one on Sunday. This way we were able to visit all fifty-two churches in the span of only fifty weeks.
The timing was intentional. By completing our mission two weeks early, we were able to return to our church in time for Holy Week. Our mission of visiting all these different Christian churches would be bookended with Easter celebrations at our home church.
But that’s not quite how it worked out either. I was so anxious to return and re-immerse myself into their fellowship that we returned two days early, for their Good Friday service. Even so, I count Easter as our official reunion.
Since then, two key things have changed: we’ve moved, and they’ve moved.
A Return Home
After being away, we will be back in town on Easter to enjoy Sunday dinner with family—or at least as many of us who can gather at Mom’s house.
Since we’ll be in town for the day, our daughter suggests we visit our former church. Though I have my doubts, preferring to leave it in our past, in the end we end up joining our daughter and her family to check out our old church in their new building.
Though I’ve maintained contact with my closest friends there, I will enjoy seeing others—assuming they still go there.
The church started a decade before by a group of people who didn’t fit into the established church culture. I was one of those people. We first met in a traditional looking church building that seated a couple hundred.
After our second week, we had to add a second service.
A few years later, with two services no longer able to contain our numbers, we tried going to a multisite arrangement but couldn’t manage a distributed congregation and staff. We also moved our main location to another building, bigger and older.
Although that building could accommodate twice as many people, in short order we added a second service, fueled by an influx of people as we shut down our failing remote locations, one by one.
Services at the second location were good, but most people acknowledged that something was different. That intense spiritual thrill of our early years, in our first building, was largely gone.
Though the music was the same and the key staff hadn’t changed, something else had.
Theories abounded, but in the end, we failed to reclaim what we once had. Even so, the new version of our church was still more exciting and more alive than most any other church in the area.
A few years later, with our two services maxed out—and too often overcapacity—we looked to move again. This was when my family moved to another town, and we stopped going there.
Now they are in their third building, this one with over twice the capacity of the second. As a converted warehouse, it looks nothing like a traditional church, making the building much more aligned with the church’s culture and clientele.
Having been in the building less than a year, they’ve already added a second service to accommodate all the people who want to attend.
Home for Easter—Again
Today, we’re headed there to check it out. We estimate the drive will take an hour and being Easter, we expect a crowd, so we add extra time. The day is sunny, the sky is clear, and the temperature is agreeable, especially for this time of year.
Our drive is pleasant as we clock off the miles, making better time than expected and arriving earlier than needed. We are one of the first cars in their main parking lot. Even so, activity bustles around us.
Many people are already there, apparently parking in axillary lots, leaving the main one for visitors. Inside, palpable excitement permeates the space. My remaining apprehension evaporates as their anticipation of Easter celebration envelopes me.
Just inside a familiar voice bellows out my name. Before I can scarcely react, loving arms reach out to embrace me. It’s good to be known. My friend and I talk a bit, but there are others he wants to greet, too, so we head on in.
Part of me wants to hang out and mingle, but this is no longer my church, and I feel it would be wrong to act as if it is. Instead, we go into the worship area and sit down. I take in the space.
The new sanctuary is in the biggest part of the old warehouse, having the highest ceiling in the facility. The space is rectangular, with it being much wider than deep.
The stage is along one wall, with comfortable padded chairs aligned in four sections angled to face it. The room is more spacious than I expected from looking at early designs on paper. The balcony flows nicely and is not as restricting as I feared.
Overall the room possesses an open, airy feel, comfortable and inviting. Seating about five to six hundred on the main level, the balcony might add another hundred or so. But that’s just a guess. Though I want to check it out, I don’t.
Background music plays as people migrate in and fill the seats. Everyone is a buzz. I’ve been gone for nearly a year and though I recognize many people, more are new to me. By the time the service starts, the main floor is mostly full.
The worship team, comprising a familiar cast of talented musicians, kicks off the service leading us in a series of modern praise songs. The worship leader wrote some of them.
His musical ability and authenticity outshine any other worship leaders at the churches we’ve attended. Indeed, Sunday services here, specifically the worship music surpass everything else, setting our expectations as we visit other churches.
Invariably every option comes up short.
With the worship leader on lead guitar, he’s supported by a talented team: backup guitar, bass guitar, drums, and keyboard, along with a couple of vocalists.
They lead us for about forty minutes, as we smoothly move from one tune to another. Most are familiar to me. A few are new.
Some people dance, with varying degrees of expression and ability, praising God with their movements. All who do, however, do so from their seats. No one moves to the isle or goes to the front of the stage. I have seen both happen in the past but not today.
Unique in our experiences of visiting churches is the kids’ participation in worship. On one side of the stage stand a series of easels for kids to use to draw, creating art and expressing themselves as the congregation praises God.
Other children wave kid-sized worship flags, often running back and forth in front of the stage in a physical display of worship. Occasionally adults joined them in the past but not today. Might they be too self-conscious? But the children are not.
These kids’ expression of joy is not limited by what others may think but by an unrestrained zeal to move with delight. Other children sit with their families, waving their flags under the careful eye of their parents.
This is a time of exultation.
Celebrating Easter
When the music winds down, the senior pastor stands for the first time. People know to expect the unexpected. “Today,” he says in mock seriousness, “I want to address the systematic theology of Easter.” Snickers abound as he continues his somber ruse.
At the expense of his professors, he pokes fun at his seminary training. His stories of enduring his time on campus amuse the crowd. Today will be a celebration. Somber seriousness will have no place.
His tenor eases as he evokes C. S. Lewis and his classic The Chronicles of Narnia. They play a clip from the movie, showing Aslan’s capture and being prepared for sacrifice. The clip is cutoff, just before the scene becomes PG-13.
This is “the ransom theory of atonement,” he deadpans, holding his gaze until the crowd knows he’s again mocking his formal theological training. “Aslan dies for Edmund” even though he didn’t deserve it.
“You are an idiot” he later yells “and Jesus loves idiots,” he adds with a smile. “Only God can take a crucifixion and turn it into a resurrection.”
Throughout his message he weaves in Scripture, often citing the book but not giving the chapter and verse, so I’m unable to note a single passage.
“Because of Jesus” he concludes, “we can make an impact wherever we are.”
“Happy Easter!”
The service ends. The message lasted twenty-three minutes, with the whole service, just over an hour. The worship team plays as the people exit, though many stay to talk.
Celebrating Community
We move slowly, allowing time for past friends to come up to talk. Many do. It’s a time of reunion: reconnecting, giving updates, sharing life, and praising God at work.
We celebrated our Lord during the service. Now we celebrate community afterward. We tarry in conversation. When the people start arriving for the second service, we finally head out.
The service was good but quite restrained compared to their past Easter celebrations. There were no beach balls, no dancing in the aisles, no spontaneous baptisms. It was more like other churches and less like their maverick past.
This church is maturing, growing up, and it saddens me.
Though we subconsciously use this church as our standard to evaluate other churches, I realize even they no longer match our expectations. They, too, fall short. While our memories could be in error, it’s more likely that they’ve changed.
They have moved closer to the status quo and further away from their counterculture approach to worshiping God and doing church. The thrill is gone.
Takeaway
How has your church changed in the past few years. Are these good changes or not so good?
My wife and I visited a different Christian Church every Sunday for a year. This is our story. Get your copy of 52 Churches today, available in ebook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.
Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront status quo religion and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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