On the 8th of July, I went to an Independent Fundamental Baptist church with Rachel. It is a small church that brings to mind the term “Old Time Religion” and reminded me of an old country church I used to attend. Hearing someone call a friend “Brother So and so” or “Sister Such and Such” reminds me of a different time in my life. [It makes me miss Bro. Freddie... I feel a trip to Silver Moon Full Gospel coming on.]

We listened to a young, gentle Australian missionary and an old, fired up [kinda loud] evangelist. I wore a long skirt, thoroughly enjoyed the hymns and purposely didn’t bring my paperback non-KJV Bible with me. Thankfully I have MyBible on my Palm Pilot which lets me look up verses in both the ESV and KJV at the same time.

The following week, I attended Grace Through Faith Fellowship with my twin sister. GTF is an “independent, locally governed, non-denominational Christian church.” They’re a friendly bunch of people who come from various church and ‘non-church’ backgrounds. They all seemed completely overjoyed to see one another. I got there late and missed most of worship, but I did get to hear some guy’s testimony and then take communion. This was the first time I went to a church where communion is served by intinction. That means you take the bread and dip it into the chalice of wine or juice. This definitely solves the problem of filling and washing [or tossing] all of those cute little communion cups. It probably also calms the germ fears of those that don’t like the shared chalice that some faith groups use… though, if everyone’s dippin their bread into a cup… there are probably a few people that um… dip too far. [Licking grape juice off one's fingers doesn't really seem... um... sacred or holy... I'm just saying.] I did like how servers would hand you the bread and offer the cup. I’m more accustomed to a plate being passed down each pew, each person in a sense serving themselves. We should serve each other more. We should look into each other’s eyes more often and say things like, “This is His body… This is His blood… Given for You.”

After spending a few weeks away from home, I had been looking forward to getting back to Springfield and worshiping at my home church, Central Assembly of God. But when Mark Hunsaker mentioned on his blog that he would be preaching this morning I decided to head to River of Life and support my Lutheran Bro.

I really enjoyed the service: the music, communion, and sermon. It was all very good and very familiar. This wasn’t your typical liturgical Lutheran worship service. Which was cool… and kinda sad because I kind of like the stand up, sit down, kneel, turn to this page turn to that page, Peace be with you and also with you kinda thing… at least every once in a while. I hear they’re going to add a liturgical service soon. I think I’ll have to go check it out some time, just to get my liturgical fix. The worship music was contemporary, with a band on the stage and the words on the screen. They threw in a hymn for good measure and sang a song Rachel and I were just talking about last night. Mark gave a good explanation for communion and everyone went up front to take the bread from him, a small cup from another gentleman and then deposit the cup in a plate a woman was holding. [P.S. Thanks to Debbie for pointing out that the cups on the outside of the plate are real wine and the cups on the inside are juice. Good for this AG girl to know.] After communion [which really was very meaningful], Mark delivered a great message which just happened to address everything I’ve been reading about for the last week. Of course. I think I’ve shared those same verses with a friend of mine over the phone and email at least a dozen times in the last week.

So there you go. Three Sundays, in three states worshiping the same God in three different churches, in three different ways… each time sitting by family. You know, there really isn’t as much that divides us as we sometimes think. That said, I’m still looking forward to going to Central Assembly tonight. It’s nice to go home. All of this time spent with Southern Baptists, and Independent Fundamental Baptists and Lutherans, and non-denominational Christians… it has all been very good, very encouraging. It has also made me look more closely at what I believe and why. As I feel united with fellow Christians who wear other labels, I’ve also found myself feeling drawn closer to my own denomination and Pentecostal heritage.

Side Notes:
1. Mark is Debbie’s husband… “Miss Debbie” is one of children’s favorite people.