Julie Halitzka

Church Hunting

It was our second weekend in Louisville visiting churches.

This week we went to a church that… well, was just too slick. I’ve never been to a service where I’d have said that before, but today we walked in on it. It was hard to put our fingers on exactly why. I’ve sung all of the songs before, lyrical content was solid, the setup of the room worked, there was nothing distracting. It was a fairly small room, but with some intelligent fixtures and canvas screens with nice lighting. The singers were very energetic, some of them are probably way bouncier and smilier than me, and that’s saying something. They did have some time for free worship, which I always think of as a plus. Maybe they were just trying too hard to be cool?

The pastor also came up and said hello, but then ignored me and talked only to my husband. Didn’t ask too many questions about us either, just told my husband that he was going to love the service, that it was great, etc.

The message was kind of off too… talking about “Dark times”, the silence between the testaments, but communicating that the first word of the Lord after Malachi was announcing to Mary that Jesus would be born. As I recall, Zecharaiah would have heard about John the Baptist being concieved, before Mary…

SO, don’t think this church will be our home.

The church we attended last week, however, was AWESOME! Very authentic, solid teaching, contemporary worship, and a call to go out and serve the community. The pastor challenged us to do a Random Act of Kindness within an hour of leaving. They are actually heading up “Love Louisville Day” on October 6, trying to get 100 local churches together to collectively serve the community. Pretty cool stuff.

Anyway, that’s the status of our search so far.