Friday, July 22, 2005
Normal Christians
I mustered some courage and tried a new church for their singles night last night. I was prepared for disappointment because of some earlier experiences with "Holy Rollers" and rock & roll bands. Are 20 piece drum sets really neccessary to sing hymns? Whatever brings the crowds, I guess. Trace used to call it "Hot tub religion" after a book by the same title.
I arrived at the converted office building and was still bracing for the worst. To my surprise, there were no "ushers" to decend on me to ask who I was and where I was coming from. "Fill this out so we can put you on our e-mail list, and visit you at random."
I walked into the "Acoustic Cafe" and found a type of greeting table where people would pick up their notes to fill out during the lesson and a name tag. The blank notes indicated that we'd be cracking the Bible tonight. "Oh, and here's a visitor card for you to fill out."
It turned out that most of the people were camping in Tahoe or somewhere and the guitar player appologized for the sparce crowd. Well, my table was full with 8 and there were about 5 such tables. Anywho, the songs started and I was relieved to know that I knew all of them (thank you K-LOVE!) They were all K-LOVE contemporary songs, but no rock & roll. Nice, but very short. Three songs later the lesson began.
The lesson was pretty basic stuff. Really basic at times, but the speaker was passionate. Not sure if he's the "regular guy" or not. Afterwards, we broke into small groups to discuss the questions in hand.
O.K. #1 - pretty braindead. #2, well, the more you think about it, the harder the answer becomes.
All in all, it was a pretty good evening. I'll be going again when I have a free Thursday night. My worries about rock bands and holy rollers and all that were unfounded in reality, so it was nice to be with Christians like me.
I arrived at the converted office building and was still bracing for the worst. To my surprise, there were no "ushers" to decend on me to ask who I was and where I was coming from. "Fill this out so we can put you on our e-mail list, and visit you at random."
I walked into the "Acoustic Cafe" and found a type of greeting table where people would pick up their notes to fill out during the lesson and a name tag. The blank notes indicated that we'd be cracking the Bible tonight. "Oh, and here's a visitor card for you to fill out."
It turned out that most of the people were camping in Tahoe or somewhere and the guitar player appologized for the sparce crowd. Well, my table was full with 8 and there were about 5 such tables. Anywho, the songs started and I was relieved to know that I knew all of them (thank you K-LOVE!) They were all K-LOVE contemporary songs, but no rock & roll. Nice, but very short. Three songs later the lesson began.
The lesson was pretty basic stuff. Really basic at times, but the speaker was passionate. Not sure if he's the "regular guy" or not. Afterwards, we broke into small groups to discuss the questions in hand.
- Basically...
- Did Christ die for your sins?
- How does that affect your life?
O.K. #1 - pretty braindead. #2, well, the more you think about it, the harder the answer becomes.
All in all, it was a pretty good evening. I'll be going again when I have a free Thursday night. My worries about rock bands and holy rollers and all that were unfounded in reality, so it was nice to be with Christians like me.
