The Right Voice

I had the pleasure misfortune of attending a mega church last week. Now, McLean Bible Church is not as big as Joel Osteen’s church, but with four campuses and several different worship options at each campus, it is nothing to sneeze at. In my opinion, it is far too big to effective at doing anything but having a church service. Don’t get me wrong, it is great that it can preach the Gospel to so many people, but churches are called to do more than that. Churches are supposed to provide fellowship and teaching to the believers. The book of Peter calls pastors to feed His sheep. It is not that people are not fed at these mega churches, it is just that they are fed milk. The book of Hebrews calls churches to move from milk to meat. Milk is for infant Christians. As we mature in our faith, we are supposed to be fed meat.

Part of it is my fault, I suppose. I enjoy traditional worship (Hymns and such). Since I had no idea what was going on, I walked into the only open door I saw. I was “The Edge” with “contemporary band led worship”. That is not my style at all. In fact, I despise it. To me it sounds canned and there is such a huge lack of raw emotion. People singing them just seemingly go through the motions, as it were. I was so disenchanted by the music that I did not even pay attention to what anyone was saying. I could only even make out the words through the noise during the offertory when the chorus was “Kingdom of Heaven, rain down on me.” What does that even mean? Sounds poetic, I suppose, but no one at home is ever going to say that. Once I figured out that I was in the wrong room I contemplated leaving and going to the other room, but by that time, it was much too late for that.

After worship time (seemed like an eternity, but in reality, it was about 30-35 minutes which is still quite long) there was the sermon. It was delivered via satellite from wherever he was preaching from (Loudon?). We were graced with a sermon that lasted about 15 minutes. It was about witnessing. It was part 8 in a series. I can only assume that there is so many parts because there is only so much you can say in 15 minutes anyway. It was light and fluffy like I was expecting. I was hoping for substance, but there was hardly any. He just said to preach the Gospel which is exactly what we are told to do in Matthew 28. Thanks, I definitely could not have figured that out on my own.

So after that experience at church it was time to leave. Well, that is another story. I went to the parking garage and found my car where I parked it at F3. I saw a little bit of traffic getting out, but I was not expecting what happened. I was stuck in the parking garage for upwards of 30 minutes, then when I finally got onto Route 7, There was massive amounts of traffic. The police even get involved in the mass exodus from this particular church. It took me over an hour and a half to get home. So I all in all, I had 2 and a half hours of driving time, $1.50 in tolls and a miserable church experience. I probably won’t be going back.

Todd