Worship Blitz = Frustration: Part One

This past weekend CBC had their worship blitz. Basically what that entitled was we went five churches. Four of them we went to a service. Let's get started shall we? I should mention that I am talking about a couple of the churches. The rest on posts to come.

St. Michaels Catholic Church:
This was by Catholic standards conservative. That is in no way a bad thing. I found it to be somewhat like Anglican services which I grew up with.

Likes:

The band was awesome I must say. Everything flowed well and the drummer was very good. The, who I assume was the band leader, seemed like he would be a cool guy to talk to.

The regular pastor who had an acent seemed laid back from what I have heard about other priests in the Cathloic denomination. It would have been interesting to talk with him especially on the idea of giving children their first communion at such an early age.

I like when the regular priest asked the kids: "Who is your best friend? The answer was Jesus. I found that smart to ask that question.

I liked how people worshipped like people would in a say an emerging church with their hands in their air.

Dislikes:

I didn't like how they give children commuion at such an early age. I am not some of them can't grasp it, it's just that some of them probably don't get anything thing out of it. I know if I was their age and recieving communion that I wouldn't get anything out of it.

Another dislike I had was when the Bishop was doing his sermon, he just read off of a sheet of paper. I like someone to have emotion in their voice and look at congregation when they are doing their sermon. Eye contact is crucial.

The final dislike I had with this church was how this one woman who got a to sing a solo made is seem like Canadian Idol. I feel that God couldn't really give a shit about how you sang as long you were doing so in God's name.

All in all I was pretty pleased with that service unlike some other services I am going to talk about.

Center Street Church:
This was the second church we went to for a service. It was a Sunday morning service and Brain said that was a huge church and he was not kidding. There was nothing about this church and service I liked. I shouldn't say that. There were two things I liked.

Likes:
I liked that they had a book store and a library. Getting Christian reading material so you further you faith is a good thing.

The second and last thing I liked was that they had a cello player in the band. I thought that was totally cool.

DISLIKES:
As soon as I walked in the door I had a beef with Center Street Church. I seen that they had a fully stocked coffee bar where you could get coffee and something to munch on. I thought who needs that. There are some churches who have a pot of coffee and are fine with that.

Another I didn't like was the fact that they had security. If you are that big that you need security then I feel you are not an intimate setting, for a lack of a better term. I mean, you should feel safe in a church. In restrospect, security is pretty pointless in a church.

I thought that the service didn't do a damn thing for me. I saw people dancing, rasining their hands, and just praising God to the fullest. It's fine that they did it, I just couldn't get in that mode.

The things I did not about the service was rock concert it was. In one of the books for worship leading class it says that you shouldn't have a rock concert feel to it and have it showy. Yes, you should have a good sound system and yes you should play to the best of your abilities. But you don't need that type of feel to it. You can do as with less lights and whatnot.

The woman who sung a solo was trying to be too much like Canadian Idol. Again, God doesn't give a rats ass how you sing as long as you are doing it in praise of God. Sure it's nice to do everything perfect when worshipping God and all, but we are not perfect. Who cares if you make a mistake it's the end of the damn world.

The one doing the sermon was mono tone. I just couldn't get engaged by him. The thing I remember guy talking about was a story about him having to be on ritalin. That's pretty much what I remember. Otherwise, I didn't a thing out of it.

In the big scheme of things, I felt like God was so distant during the Center Street Church service. I just didn't feel like worshipping like I usually do. I didn't feel it at all. I came out feeling frustrated. It's something I have never experienced before. I have this feeling that God was trying to test me. I felt like, "Why am I feeling this way?"

Feeling frustrated set the tone for the rest of the worship blitz. I will tell you more about that in part two.