What we have discovered searching for a church home

When Teresa and I moved to Woodstock, GA we found (on the internet) a local church that met in a theater up the freeway from us. Before we moved to town we actually went to lunch (@ Williamson Brothers BBQ, yum!) with the senior pastor and another guy on staff (Malcolm). We really thought the church had a good vision to reach people, especially those NOT from a traditional church background.

Some of the things we liked about what we saw:

- Upbeat music, great musicians with high energy.
- lots of people greeting you at the door, a good buzz
- met in a movie theater and seemed to be growing
- diverse people, all ages, races and backgrounds represented
- seemed to have their act together on Sunday mornings

We started attending not soon after moving to Georgia and decided we would get plugged-in right away. We both volunteered to be greeters and passed out flyers at the door each Sunday, helped new people find their way around and generally wanted to make people feel welcome. A little while later we were asked to help lead what they called a 'home team'. This is a Bible study group comprised of people from the church, which met weekly.

All was well, or so we thought, for several months. About 8 months into the process our eyes were opened wide, we discerned serious problems with the leadership (confirmed them) and direction of the church, decided it was time to move on, told the pastor so (and why) and left. Looking back it was the right thing to do as God used that to teach us (and continues to do so today).

Since then Teresa and I have learned so much about the purpose, function, leadership and importance of a church. We have visited so many little churches around us, started by so called "church planters" over the past year and are amazed at how exactly the same they all are. This has led us to study, research, pray about and pay attention to the state of today's 'christian' church.

Cherokee County (and the entire southeast region) is covered in new churches. They meet in every school, theater and civic center available.

Here are some of the qualities of a 'new', real, hip and relevant church started by a planter today, based on our observations.

- say NOTHING matters but reaching people for Jesus

Using this first statement justify the following:

• be as offensive to other Christians as possible, it is cool to show how stupid Christians are. I personally was told from day one that "I didn't get it, that I wouldn't make it". That much was true, a source of some level of 'pride' now, for lack of a better word!!

• be as offensive to other churches as possible, other churches are stupid too you know

• home teams must be more social in nature, do not study the Bible, talk about the sermon from last week. Do not stray or you will be cut off.
  

• use crude and vulgar language on your blog, twitter, in the service and in your publications and events. This is designed to show the non-believer that you are cool too and that it doesn't matter how you act or what you say if you are a believer. Some of the best words and phrases (these are NOT made up, I have them all available for reference), and I apologize for this, are 'suck', 'freaking', 'ass', 'balls to the wall', "I'm going to punch him in the throat", "I'll come kick their @##", and make jokes with crude sexual references constantly, talk about how 'hot' your wife is and hint about your sexual prowess.
  

• Bible study is to be done on your own time, topic sermons are the way to go

• going deep is a joke, people don't want to study deeper in the Word

• the leadership of the church is accountable only to God, they started the church so they are the only ones that should know what is happening behind the scenes.

• every third sermon series has to be about the history of the church.

• every second sermon series has to be about sex, post pictures of couples under cover in bed, kissing, pictures of people's backside, etc. Send flyers out to the community and laugh when someone calls back saying the flyers are rather offensive.

• be obsessed with secular music and television, telling everyone about it and how you make your day by filling your head and life with the stuff
  

• Go to every church planters conference available, hang out with your 'pastor' buddies all the time
  

• Talk about how cool your church planter friends (pastors) are and how cool you are, remember YOU are the only one that knows what God wants from your church/ministry.

• Remove anyone who ask questions, then make fun of them.
  

• If someone leaves the church tell everyone remaining to ignore them, do not contact them, they never existed and it is THEIR problem. Even if that person was on staff, they are persona non grata, useless to you.
  

• show pride in having the police called to your church, having the neighbors upset with you and threaten to beat them up, or send someone from the church to do so

• twitter every thought you have, the more vulgar the better (remember, that makes you 'real')

I could go on... but I will not. It is hard writing this without coming across as EXACTLY what I am speaking about. I do not say these 'planters' are stupid. However, I do believe many are misguided and dangerous to the faith.

This was therapeutic, I'll have more to say about what else we have discovered - THAT IS POSITIVE, AMAZING, HEARTWARMING AND A REAL BLESSING.