Were you there at Calvary Chapel?

This past Sunday, I visited Calvary Chapel in Clearfield, Utah.

A bit of information about Calvary Chapel. Calvary Chapel was founded by Chuck Smith, a pastor in the Foursquare Church. (I did a blog about them earlier. Go check it out.) He believed the Holy Spirit gave him the gift of prophecy to start a new Christian organization which would shepherd many flocks. He began Calvary Chapel, which had elements from the hippie movement involved in it, in the 1960's following a split with the Foursquare Church.

A major setback in Calvary Chapel's history came in the 1980's when Smith prophesied that Christ would return by 1981 and the Great Tribulation would begin and last up until 1988. When this failed to happen, many left the Church, though it has still continued on.

Though I mentioned it was born out of the 1960's and the hippie movement, Calvary Chapel still maintains fairly conservative Christian doctrine. They like to think of themselves as an Evangelical church that is part way between fundamentalism and Pentecostalism. They are fundamentalist in that they believe in the Bible is inerrant and take a more literal approach to it. They are Pentecostal in that they believe in gifts from the Holy Spirit.

Beliefs and practices of Calvary Chapel:

• They like to view themselves more as a fellowship of churches than a denomination. Honestly, given that they have set doctrine, I don't see how they are not a denomination. But I very well could be missing a key distinction.
• They believe in the Trinity.
• Believe that Christ is the Messiah and Savior of mankind. He is the second person in the Trinity fully God and man.
• Mankind is totally depraved with no goodness in him. A result of the Fall of Adam.
• Mankind is saved only by God's grace. No works can save man.
• God has predestined who will and will not be saved, but the individual still has to accept God's gift.
• Christ died for the whole world, not just for the elect.
• Mankind can resist God's grace.
• They believe the saints shall endure to the end, but the world is full of sinful people who lead deviant lifestyles and call themselves Christians.
• Believe in spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, prophecy, etc.
• Believe in baptism in the Holy Spirit, meaning the Holy Spirit comes over them and fills them with grace.
• Believe that baptism is an outward sign of being born again in Christ for believers only. Done by immersion.
• Communion is practiced. Symbolic of the body and blood of Jesus and his atonement.
• Conservative social values: homosexuality is condemned, abortion considered immoral, women are not made pastors, etc.

So, what was Calvary Chapel like?

Atmosphere:

Calvary Chapel in Clearfield is literally a tiny chapel in a subdivision. It's quaint on the outside. Not much to it structurally. The cross on top is gorgeous with the trees framing it as you stand in front of the entrance.

The interior is pretty much what I've come to expect from Evangelical chapels. A bunch of chairs lined up in rows facing a stage with a live band, a pulpit in the center, and a screen to project the song lyrics onto. There weren't many decorations to speak of. There were a couple maps on the wall, one of which had a picture of the Mediterranean and what looked like Paul's journeys. The second map was of the Holy Land and looked to be modern and ancient superimposed on each other. In front, where you typically see a cross in chapels, there was the logo of Calvary Chapel, a stylized outline of a dove representing the Holy Spirit.

Overall, it was a fairly simple and typical Evangelical chapel. Nothing of real note to it.

The People:

The people were pretty nice. So many of them came up to us and introduced themselves. They were all very warm and friendly with each other. They seemed to be from diverse walks of life. Some with tattoos, some in suits, a few wearing Christian themed t-shirts. One woman was singing the hymns and signing them in ASL to herself. I thought that was pretty cool to see.

Overall, fairly nice and energetic people of diverse backgrounds.

The Service:

I am glad that this is the last Evangelical service I am attending for the year, as I am getting strong deja vu with the description of the services. It was the same as the others in format: contemporary Christian rock music for the first portion, a couple prayers with some announcements, then a sermon.

The music was the most noteworthy part. It just kept going. We sang songs for the first 45 minutes with only announcements and a few brief words between the songs. The words were kind of degrading at times, with the man saying them saying things like, "We are filthy," and "We have nothing to offer you, God." He would then follow that up with something like, "But you love us, Lord."

There was then a sermon, as I mentioned, and then a blessing over the congregation before being dismissed. In all, it was only an hour and a half, but the lengthy music at the beginning made it feel a lot longer. I much prefer churches with only one or two hymns at the beginning.

Overall, pretty typical Evangelical service. Not much more to say other than what I have said.

The Message:

The sermon was interesting. It lacked structure, which is a common trend. I find with most churches the sermon is either completely written out and planned down to the smallest details, or it is completely free form with no structure at all. This congregation chose the latter. It began with him reading the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount, then it went off on many unrelated topics.

As such, I will present this sermon in bullet points of topics addressed, and then discuss one peculiarity I found at the end.

• God promises happiness unaffected by circumstances.
• We are totally dependent on God.
• Before God, we are in abject poverty.
• You are bad, you should mourn your sins daily.
• Mourn your sins as King David did after he sinned with Bathsheba.
• There is unhealthy grief, like when men are ending their addiction to porn and are grieving the loss of it like it was their best friend. (I'm going to be honest, that one almost made me laugh.)
• Raising of Lazarus.
• You should feel like dirt and endure God's wrath without anyone keeping you from fully experiencing your godly sorrow when you sin.
• And then, all of this was followed up with the contradictory statement, "God doesn't want us to feel like dog meat our whole lives. He wants us to feel joy." This is in complete contrast to everything else mentioned above.

One thing that struck me though was the pastor told a story that my friend immediately recognized as a story from the internet. I looked the story up and sure enough, it is floating around the internet. The story is of a man standing in line at Burger King (retold as McDonalds in the pastor's version). There's a mother with her son behind him. The son is using foul language demanding the mother buy him an apple pie. The man is frustrated and outraged, so he buys all the apple pies just so the boy can't have any. In the pastor's story, there is an additional detail of the man giving the boy a pie after the boy starts behaving.

Now, it appears that this is a real story as all the sources I'm seeing of it put it in Canada and remain fairly consistent. I have no problem with the pastor telling this story, except he was trying to pass it off as something that happened to him. I hadn't heard this story, so I didn't think about it much. But once my friend told me it was on the internet, I suddenly questioned all the stories this pastor was telling as examples of his points. 

Why would you lie about a story like that when it's so easy to prove it didn't happen to you? It's very interesting seeing someone who's supposedly a man of God, up in a pulpit telling people how wicked

they are, meanwhile, he's needlessly lying about a life story. It does raise up some flags as I am 100% certain lying is a sin in every branch of Christianity. If you're willing to deceive everyone about something so small, then it's not hard to envision you lying about something major. I have no proof that he is. But it does make me question things.

Overall, the sermon was a huge guilt trip mixed in with Bible verses and stories about the pastor's life, which I question, that illustrate his points.

Overall Experience:

This church was truly what it claimed to be, a hybrid of the fundamentalist and Pentecostal traditions. It was a good way to end my visits to the Evangelical churches as it was full of the guilt and hell fire sermons I've seen in the fundamentalist churches and also filled with the contemporary worship and music of the modern Evangelical movement.

I wouldn't return to this church. It's more of the same, plus a lot of guilt, and a pastor I don't trust.

Additional Notes:

Due to some things going on this weekend, I will not be visiting a church, but don't worry. I will be doing a blog on a special event happening in my city, the Ogden LDS Temple open house. For those of you who have wondered what a Mormon temple is like inside, I will be describing my experience inside one.

I am also working on getting some interesting new religious traditions in the upcoming blogs, including a Heathen service, a Satanist one, Mennonites, Thai Buddhists, and much more. We're almost to the final ten churches, so be prepared for some fun!

Until next time, peace be with you.

Sunday at Canyon Road Assembly of God

First of all, sorry for the inactivity on this page. I got busy and distracted by a few things in life. I'm not back in full force with 2 blog entries in 2 days.

Last Sunday, I went to Canyon Road Assembly of God Church. A little background information is in order for the Assemblies of God:

• The Assemblies of God is the largest Pentecostal church in the world with over 66 million members.
• They are Evangelical.
• They believe in the Trinity, that Christ is the second person in the Trinity who died for the sins of mankind.
• Believe in the resurrection of Jesus.
• They believe the Bible is the Word of God and the final authority.
• Believe in salvation by grace through faith alone.
• Believe in baptism in the Holy Spirit and gifts of the Spirit such as speaking in tongues, faith healing, etc.
• Practice baptism by full immersion, separate from salvation which, which prepares the person for service as a Christian.
• Practice communion, which is symbolic of sharing in the atonement of Jesus.

So how was Canyon Road?

Atmosphere:

Canyon road on 12th street in Ogden and is literally down the road from the mouth of a canyon in the mountains. The building is pretty unremarkable from the outside, and other than church signs and a pretty little rock display, you might think it was a strip mall for dentists' offices and insurance companies.

I didn't get any pictures of the chapel inside. It wasn't too different from chapels at other Evangelical churches: stage up front with a live band playing, colored lights shining onto an abstract modern backdrop, a cross in the center of the wall behind the stage, padded chairs lined up in rows, nothing too different. The only thing that made the inside setting different than Alpine Church, the Genesis Project, Crossroads, etc, was that this one had multiple flags draped along the walls of various countries.

Overall, the same sort of atmosphere I've come to expect from Evangelical churches. Not much variation or innovation with most of these churches. What's interesting is around here so many people tell me that they just discovered Alpine, or the Genesis Project, or some other church and tell me that it's not like any other church they've seen and that I need to check it out. But it seems that this type of church setting is more the rule than the exception with Evangelical churches. They all have a coffee bar, they all have a live band that plays contemporary Christian music, they all use multimedia, they all have special seminars and classes, etc.

I think the main reason people around here feel these churches are unique and not like anything else is because most of the people going to these churches come from LDS backgrounds and this style of worship is vastly different from that. But it is far from unique.

The People:

The people were pretty nice to us. We were greeted and escorted to the chapel by a lovely lady dressed very well in a summer outfit. She introduced us to the pastor who asked us a couple questions and welcomed us to the church.

There were people of all sorts of walks of life dressed in everything from suits and ties to track suits. There was a lady in front of me who had a fan made out of blue feathers. I wanted to steal it out of her hands and run I loved it so much. But of course I wouldn't.

Overall, the people were nice. Not much else to note on them.

The Service:

The service was what I've come to expect from an Evangelical church, they began with a song, opening prayer, announcements, a few more songs, then a sermon and altar call.

The announcements were interesting. They talked about a youth event that had some PowerPoint slides to go with it. Then they talked about how they had members going to Mexico for a mission that sounded like it would also include a revival at the end. The pastor said he was flying out later that day to join them.

Afterward, they talked about a fundraiser they had. There was a couple of Latino guys who got up and spoke about the fundraiser. One spoke about it in Spanish, the other translated. There was a Spanish video that wasn't translated at all advertising the event. It turns out it's a fundraiser to help orphans in Latin countries. At least that's what I gathered from the presentation.

The church is also focused heavily on missionary work. They seem to have a lot of active missionary programs and brought up how important it was to go out and save people. I noticed most of their missions were to Latin America.

The service was nothing I haven't seen before at other similar churches. I feel like with many of these Evangelical denominations I rehash the same things.

The Message:

The message was on prayer and was pretty similar in many ways to the sermon given at Crossroads Christian Fellowship a few weeks back. As such, I'm not going to really rehash a lot of the same points as you can read about them there.

What I will say is that the tone of the sermon was different. While at Crossroads, it was given in a loving gentle sort of manner, as though the pastor were talking to his friends or family in his sweet Irish accent, here it was very much done in a preaching style and delivered as a well mapped out sermon.

Some differing points he made:

• Prayer is like steroids. It boosts up your spirit and your life
• Prayer feels good and is supernatural. This is an interesting point. Prayer doesn't feel good because it's supernatural. We actually feel good due to it stimulating parts of your brain that other activities such as mediation will do. It will create a sense of connection, euphoria, and relax you. All of this is quite natural and well studied.
• Complaining is bad. Prayer is the answer to making you stop complaining.
• If you don't invest your time in church or God, then how can you expect to feel connected? If you're feeling disconnected from either, it's not on them, it's on you.

Again, pretty similar sermon to the previous one.

Overall Experience:

I feel jaded saying this service was just business as usual. But it really felt that way. I don't see a lot of variety in these churches and would like to. I understand this is what most Evangelical Christians want in a service, but it just leaves me wondering each time, is this all? In a lot of other spiritual communities, there is a lot of symbolism, a lot of ritual, special holidays that call to mind differing parts of the tradition. You fast some days, you don't others. Here, it all just seems to be the same thing in and out every week with no real variety. When does it go deeper than sing these songs and listen to this man tell you what to believe?

Additional Notes:

Expect another blog tomorrow about Faith Baptist Church. I went to this church for my friend Austin. This was his childhood church, and though we had already been to a Fundamentalist Baptist church, I felt it was important for him to experience this.

Stay tuned for that because it was quite interesting, to say the least.

Until next time, peace be with you!

Crossroads Christian Fellowship: The church on the hill with the great coffee

I went to Crossroads Christian Fellowship, part of the International Foursquare Church, an Evangelical Christian denomination with Charismatic undertones. How was it?

Atmosphere:

This church was kind of a cool building. It's up on top of a hill just off the side of the mountain. We drove up to it and were greeted by a wood building and a beautiful view.

The interior was pretty cool, it felt a lot like a ski lodge with the downstairs portion seeming to be dedicated to church offices, classrooms, and a larger space for miscellaneous things. The sanctuary was upstairs. Upstairs was another open space with a coffee bar that had a barista behind it.

He asked if we would like some iced coffee. I said, "Yes, please," and was handed a frappuccino in a ceramic cup. I kid you not, this was one of the best cups of coffee I've ever had in my life. I have not had coffee this good since I was living in France.

The sanctuary was very cool and kept with the ski lodge sort of theme. They had a stage up front where the live band was setting up to play, chairs lined up in rows, but also tables over to the side. We snagged one of the tables and sat down for the service.

The atmosphere alone sold me on this church. I jokingly said at the beginning, "With coffee and atmosphere like this, they're already getting a good review. I don't even care what they say." Obviously, I do and won't give them a good review simply based on atmosphere. But it was an awesome setting for a Sunday.

The People:

The people of the church were extremely friendly. We were greeted at the door by a nice man in an NRA hat. A woman also greeted us and pointed out where the programs were as well as some name tags we could fill out. We to the stairs and were greeted by the pastor, a kind, middle-aged Irish man. He welcomed us to the church. He later came and talked to us while they were singing hymns and made sure we'd found the coffee bar and joked with us for a minute. A few other people introduced themselves and in general they were all very polite and kind to us.

The Service:

The service started out fairly typically of Evangelical services with about a half hour of worship songs. The songs were contemporary Christian songs. The people really got into them, including clapping, raising their hands, a few rocking back and forth. I saw a grandpa who sat at the table with us during the music portion take his toddler grandson's hands and move them like they were banging drums. That was a very cute thing to see.

One song's lyrics were really interesting. It was a song called, "How He Loves Us." This song's opening verses talk about how God is jealous for me and how his love's like a hurricane and we're trees. This is not the model of a good relationship. That's sort of abusive imagery. But the tune was really pretty.

After the musical worship, there was a baby dedication. This is actually similar to something from my Mormon heritage, a baby blessing is what they call it. Basically, it was just a blessing on the baby for a long and happy life. The baby's father gave the blessing and they asked the congregation to raise their hands and join in the prayer.

I thought this was a sweet little ceremony. It amazes me that virtually all cultures have ceremonies centered around a new child coming into their life. I think that's one of the things we crave as humans, to mark significant events in our life ceremonially with the community.

After that, there was a brief intermission before the sermon. Before the sermon, a young woman came up and explained that her mother had died suddenly recently. Her mother died without life insurance, and they didn't have enough money for the funeral. The church had helped raise funds to pay for the final expenses. I thought that was a wonderful gesture.

After the sermon, there was an altar call which was fairly simplistic, and just involved him asking anyone who wanted to talk or accept Jesus to come up to the front after the service and speak with the people up there.

Overall, the service was fairly typical of an Evangelical service: contemporary, Christian music, sermon, altar call, casual atmosphere.

The Message:

The sermon today was on prayer. The sermon was an interesting one and started out with a video featuring two men in a comedy act about different ways people often pray. They poked fun at people who make lists of demands for God, portraying the demands as petty and ridiculous. Then they poked fun at people who babble on praises to God by showing them babbling on praying as they fell asleep, then God trying to wake them up, but unable to tell them what they needed to hear because of their babbling.

The pastor then got back up and stated that we don't need to babble on to try to get God's attention, as he's always there waiting for us. He also said that God isn't a sugar daddy there for us to hit up for things we need. Instead he said that God is like a kind father waiting there to try to help his child be the most they can be in life.

Then, using The Lord's Prayer as a model, gave a list of things that will guarantee that prayers will be answered. He called it an ingredients list. But before listing them, he stated that we should approach God like a Father, because he is that to us.

• Ingredient 1: Declare God's greatness. He said not to babble on incessantly about God's greatness, but acknowledge how big God is compared to you. He said God doesn't want all the ceremony and pomp, but the honest praise of man.
• Ingredient 2: Surrender your will to God. Realize that you don't pray to get what you want, but what he wants.
• Ingredient 3: Acknowledge your dependence on him. He stated that everything that we have comes from God. He said God gave you your job, your home, your livelihood, everything. Then he turned around and said that not all promotions come from God. That sometimes, man forces the hand of God to do something even though God has other plans. I find it an interesting idea that a mere human could force the hand of an omnipotent being.

Additionally, he gave 3 pieces of advice:

1. Talk to God as though you have a deep personal relationship with him, like a friend or parent.
2. Learn about God.
3. Give back to God. Just a little bit of your time and money per week.

Personally, prayer is something I have issues with. As a method of focus, a method of feeling connected to something bigger than yourself, or a way to sort out your thoughts and get in contact with parts of yourself you wouldn't normally access, I take no issue. It's no different than meditation in these aspects and has a number of benefits. But I have problems with prayer as it's generally practiced, and this sermon hit on all of them.

Declaring God's greatness for example. If there is an omnipotent being responsible for the creation of our entire universe, then our hymns and praises to this God would be meaningless to him. Why would a God who creates nebulae, stars thousands of times larger than our sun, can orchestrate billions of galaxies with billions of stars across an immense stretch of space so big our brains can't even conceptualize it care that we take time each day, and take particular care on Sunday, to praise him? It would be like us being concerned that a colony of ants in Zimbabwe took time out of their day to make sure they praised you. If you believe in God, and praise him simply for your own awe at them, that's one thing, but the idea that God demands it and needs it is absurd to me.

But that aside, that's not my big issue with prayer. If anything, that's a very minor issue and one that's neither here nor there. My big problem with it is that people pray to God to find direction in their life from an external source, and that it's supposedly praying to God you must pray in accordance with God's will. If you are praying in accordance with what God has already planned for you anyway, then what is the point of sending up petitions to God for what you want?

But bigger than that, there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to what prayers get answered in this world. It certainly doesn't appear to be a plan that's just in any way. This was actually the matter that led me to stop believing in God entirely. Every day, in many parts of the world, there are people who suffer from famine, disease, poverty, and unspeakable horror. These people all seemingly innocent in the conflict. There are God fearing Christians in African countries that live in villages where rebels come into a town and find people they feel were sympathizers with the government and as punishment will rape the wives and daughters of those they feel are guilty, wound, disfigure, etc. They will then burn the village to the ground. A few months later, the government forces will come through and do the same thing to those they feel were loyal to the rebel forces. In other places, mothers will scream and cry as they watch their 4 year-old child die in the night from starvation because a drought and barren soil have left them with no food. Every single day, most of these people send up heart rending prayers for deliverance to God. They want nothing more than the basic necessities and security in this world. Yet, most of them will die without any hope, any comfort, and nobody will ever come and save them.

Meanwhile, in the United States, people think God helps them find their car keys, or that God was responsible for getting them their promotion, or making sure they got home from work safely. Why would a God dote on the rich, industrialized world so much and shower them with blessings, meanwhile the lowliest of all suffer and die needlessly without comfort?

This is why I don't believe prayer works in a cosmic sense? It all seems very random as to who gets their prayers answered, and who does not. When it comes down to it, for me at least, it seems that the events in our life come down to a lot of hard work and even more dumb luck.

I don't discourage people from praying, I'm not the kind of person who says we should eliminate religion or belief, nor do I want to take that from people. But this is a huge conflict I see in the world that I have heard no great and satisfactory answer for.

The message was a positive message, the pastor presented it in a way that was very uplifting, and the people seemed to be filled with nothing but the best of intentions. I enjoyed the emotion the pastor expressed and you could tell that he had genuine faith in everything he was saying.

Overall Experience:

This was actually the best Evangelical service I've ever been to. I enjoyed my time there a lot. I don't agree with what was taught, but I never really will in a Christian setting. I still thought it was a positive message, the people were so kind, and the atmosphere was so wonderful that it's hard not to feel inspired and enjoy your time at Crossroads. I would definitely go back for another service and love to get to know some of the people at this community even more.

Additional Notes:

This week I will be attending two services. One will be a Gnostic Mass held by the Ordo Templi Orientis, a ceremonial magic fraternal order founded by Aleister Crowley. That should be rather interesting to see. I will also be attending services at Embry Chapel, part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, a historically black church.

Stay tuned for more on those. Until next time, peace be with you.

Heading to the Foursquare Church at Cross Roads Christian Fellowship

This week, I will be visiting yet another Evangelical church. I am heading to Cross Roads Christian Fellowship here in South Ogden. Cross Roads Christian Fellowship is part of the International Foursquare Church, an Evangelical Christian church started in the 1920's by Aimee McPherson. I find it really remarkable that there exists an Evangelical church founded by a woman that early on. Evangelical churches often have a history of promoting gender roles even today, let alone back then.

The Church teaches what are fairly general Protestant Christian principles:

• Belief in the Trinity.
• Belief that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, and the sole authority on matters of faith and doctrine.
• Belief Jesus is fully God and man.
• Belief that humanity by is completely sinful.
• Belief Jesus's sacrifice on the cross delivered mankind from sin and death.
• Belief in salvation by grace through faith alone.
• Practice of baptism. (For them, this is done by full immersion as an outward sign of them being reborn in Jesus.)
• Practice of communion in memory of the sacrifice of Jesus.
• Belief in the Last Judgment where all mankind will go to Heaven or Hell for all eternity.

Additionally, the Church has the following Evangelical and Charismatic elements to them:

• One must be born again by accepting Jesus as your savior.
• One develops a personal relationship with Jesus.
• One is also baptized in the Holy Spirit separate from their conversion.
• This baptism in the Spirit leads to gifts of the Spirit like speaking in tongues or faith healing
• Belief in the Rapture and the Millennial reign of Jesus.

Finally, there are aspects of the Church which, while not necessarily unique, are defining of them:

• Belief in the 4 aspects of Jesus from which the Church gets its name:
• Jesus as Savior of the World.
• Jesus as spiritual healer of mankind.
• Jesus as the baptizer along with the Holy Spirit.
• Jesus as the King of the World who's reign is sure to come.
• Belief that a person can lose their salvation, that once a person is saved, that doesn't mean they're saved forever. They must endure to the end.
• Faith healing as part of the divine power of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.

We'll see what this one is like. It seems very similar to a number of other churches I have visited, so, we shall see if there's much difference in tone or service.

Until next time, peace be with you.

Next stop: Good Friday at Washington Heights Church

Good Friday is a coming. Good Friday is the second day of the Triduum in Christianity, again, the most holy days on the Christian calendar.

Good Friday, sometimes called Great Friday or Great and Holy Friday, is celebrated by, the Oriental Orthodox, the Eastern Orthodox, Catholics, Anglicans/Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, many Baptists, many Evangelicals, many Charismatics, almost all Christian denominations.

Good Friday solemnly commemorates the crucifixion and burial of Jesus of Nazareth. For Christians, this day marks the day that Christ died for their sins, therefore is central to their belief.

Celebrations vary widely in the Christian world. These include: commemorative Masses or liturgies that remember his death, partaking in communion, plays depicting the death of Jesus, reading of Scriptures and hearing sermons on the sacrifice of Jesus, adoration of the cross, walking the Stations of the Cross, etc.

I will be attending Washington Heights Church (formerly known as Washington Heights Baptist Church) for Good Friday services.

Washington Heights Church is the closest I am going to find to a Christian megachurch in my area. It is a very large church building located in South Ogden, and part of a larger Heights Church Community, a group of congregations in Utah that formally belong to the Conservative Baptist Association of America, which is a loose confederation of regional, autonomous churches. This means the local churches are self governing and not controlled by any outside influence.

The Heights Community has three churches it refers to as campuses, one in South Ogden, one in Bountiful, and one in Ogden serving the Latino community. The Heights Church, though officially Baptist, has in recent years, seemed to drift further from that label and embracing a more general Evangelical Christian label.

Their beliefs are fairly general Baptist/Evangelical beliefs:

• The Bible is the inerrant Word of God inspired by the Holy Spirit and the final authority on matters of faith and doctrine.
• Belief in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as one God in three Persons (the Trinity).
• Christ died for the sins of all mankind.
• Those who trust in Jesus Christ and accept him as their Lord and Savior are regenerated and saved.
• Salvation is through faith alone and not by the works of mankind.
• Immersion baptism required as a sign of commitment by those who have accepted Jesus as their Savior.
• Traditional family and conservative values.
• Separation of church and state.

I'm curious to see how this service is as I have never been to a Good Friday service at a church that didn't have Catholic ceremony. The LDS Church of my childhood doesn't celebrate Good Friday, and I've only really been to Catholic Good Friday services. I'm going into this fairly blind as I have no idea what the service will be like.

I will keep you updated as to what happens. Until next time, peace be with you.

Contemporary coffee consuming Christians.

Today I went to Alpine Church's Riverdale Campus. What was it like visiting this nondenominational Evangelical church?

Atmosphere:

Alpine's Riverdale Campus (church) is a very modern building with an industrial feel.

The outside of the church is decorated simply with the name of the church and a large wooden cross.

The parking lot was filled with cars and tons of people streaming into the building. I was amazed with how many people were there. This church so far, with the exception of the LDS church I attended, had the most people I've seen.

The entryway of the church is quite modern and quite lovely. There are tables by the door with free copies of the Bible that include the NIV (New International Version) and the NLT (New Living Translation). I took the NLT as I don't have a copy of that one yet. There is also a fireplace lounge with plush leather couches to sit on and bookshelves full of books to study. Along the wall is a coffee bar with lots of free coffee of various kinds held in self-serve dispensers. The coffee bar was adorned with a number of crosses and a sign that said "Pursue God" which seems to be the theme of this church.

I grabbed a cup of coffee and headed into the chapel. The chapel was a modern room with chairs lined along in rows and a stage with a live band playing against a modern background of blue lit glass panels.

Overall, the atmosphere was warm, welcoming, and modern. I loved the look of the building. It's quite different from other churches I've been to, yet has very familiar elements to it.

The People:

As I mentioned previously, there were a lot of people there. When we arrived, the service was just barely beginning, but there were people still coming in the building, grabbing coffee, herding their children to Sunday school, heading into the chapel.

Nobody came up and greeted us personally with the exception of my cousin after the service. That being said, the people were very warm and friendly. I didn't feel any judgmental stares, nobody seemed to wonder what we were doing there. The people were a diverse crowd. There were people with multicolored hair, people in conservative dress, people in casual clothing, multiple races, some dressed in designer clothing, some in more skater or clothing I generally refer to as "thug-lite." In general, it was a "come as you are" crowd with diverse backgrounds.

Overall, the people seemed like a tight knit but friendly and open crowd.

The Service:

The service was a typical sort of service you'd see in most Evangelical churches. It opened with a song, again the music was contemporary. The people stood up and sang the words which were projected onto two screens in the front. Some people raised their hands up or closed their eyes while singing as though in prayer. Others simply sang the words and enjoyed the music. Afterward, there were some announcements, then two more songs were played, again by the live band.

After the songs, there was a short video which featured the one of the pastors of the church introducing the theme of this week's sermon, which was part of their continuing series on atonement. After the video introduction, another pastor came up and gave a sermon. More on that in "The Message" section below.

After the sermon, they had communion. The communion was interesting to me coming from a different that wasn't Evangelical. The band played music and the pastor said a couple words about the communion being a memorial of Christ's sacrifice and all Christ followers were welcome. Then people lined up and went to one of several tables just below the stage which had a glass bowl of wafers and one wine glass full of grape juice per table. The people dipped the wafers in the juice then took them back to their seats and ate them. This was different to me because my background is LDS and Catholic. In both traditions, there are special communion prayers that are said and the elements of communion are blessed. But there was no blessing and no special prayers. No prayers at all unless the individual said one when they went back to their seat. This just struck me as odd as communion was always the central focus of worship in the faiths of my youth and there was always a lot of fuss over this ceremony.

After communion, they said a short prayer and the pastor delivered a message not to feel guilt for your sin anymore if you had trusted in Jesus because he already died for you. They then dismissed the congregation.

The service was fun. I enjoyed the music and the laid back atmosphere.

The Message:

As mentioned above, the message was part of their ongoing series on atonement. In the intro video, the pastor mentioned that they were going to draw comparisons to Old Testament sacrifice and the sacrifice of Jesus. During the intro, he said you'd need your thinking caps on for this one.

The pastor's sermon began with showing the tabernacle and explaining a little bit about the various places in it. He then explained the atonement process Israel went through on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. This involved several animal sacrifices, the releasing of the scapegoat into the wilderness as a symbolic purge of the sins of the nation from their presence, and the High Priest offering a prayer in the Holy of Holies for the Nation of Israel. He then said that Jesus is like the ultimate High Priest and living sacrifice because his sacrifice and his priesthood is forever.

This was really the whole of the message. There wasn't much more complexity to it. I liked that it was structured and informed, but I wanted it to go more into depth. I realize that I've read a lot about religion, particularly the history and origin of Christianity and Judaism. But the message was very basic Christian principles. When it was said at the beginning of the service you needed your thinking caps, I was hoping for something with a little more meat on it. As it was, it was a surface level presentation of Christianity.

There was nothing unexpected about the message, nor anything objectionable, but I do think that Christianity as it's presented to congregations today is all too safe and all too friendly without delving deep enough into things that, in ages gone by, Christianity would have addressed.

I would like to see a Christian church delve deeply into stories that are in their scriptures that are uncomfortable, like Lot offering his daughters up to an angry mob so they didn't rape his guests and his daughters later raping him to conceive children; Jephthah offering his daughter as a human sacrifice because God granted him victory in battle; Jesus encouraging his followers castrate themselves, literally give up all material possessions, forsake their families and follow him; etc. Or even focusing on darker parts of their common beliefs such as why bad things happen to seemingly righteous and innocent people with a supposedly all perfect and all loving God, why God demands atonement for sin when in his omnipotence he could eliminate sin entirely, why an all just God would create a infinite Hell for finite crimes, etc.

These things are real stories and real issues that Christianity has faced for centuries and great theologians have hotly debated and come to various conclusions. However, modern Christianity has done itself no favors by only focusing on the positive aspects of its message and not delving deep into its more challenging aspects. The reason it has not is that people often feel a huge sense of betrayal by their faiths when they realize that all of these stories or questions were hidden from them or never addressed. They feel like they were well versed in their religion only to find that there was another side to it. This leads many to doubt their faith strongly.

Now, I realize that many in these congregations have no desire to be biblical scholars or discuss fine details of theology, that they want to come to church to experience some kind of personal relationship with their God. But I feel these people more than anyone else deserve to be presented with the entirety of their faith, not just the happy easily digestible parts of it. People claim they want truth, but what they want is to feel close to something bigger than themselves and often become uncomfortable if that feeling is threatened by things that don't gel with their deeply held beliefs. But it is exactly this kind of person that is scandalized and harmed the most when they discover what's been hidden from them.

As I said, the sermon was a good and positive sermon, I just really want to see Christianity go deeper in the public sphere. I'm sick of seeing easy answers doled out across the pulpit and sermons that sound like sound bites or only focus on positive messages.

Overall Experience:

I really did enjoy my time at Alpine Church and would go back again with my family as it was a fun experience, a great atmosphere, and good service. I'm very glad it's a home that some members of my family have found and it seems to have been nothing but a good thing for them.

Additional Comments:

Next week is going to be interesting. I'm going to try to do 4 services or events since it's Holy Week on the Christian calendar. We'll see if I'm able to do it between work and other things going on in my life.

We will begin our Holy Week marathon with Palm Sunday at Glory to God Old Catholic Church in Ogden.

Until next time, peace be with you!

To Alpine Church I Go

This Sunday I'm going to Alpine Church in Riverdale, which is the next city over from Ogden. Alpine Church is a nondenominational Christian church with a strong Evangelical slant. They are located in Utah with several churches, which they refer to as "campuses" across the state. There is one in Riverdale, Layton, Logan, West Haven, and Brigham City. These churches offer multiple service times over the weekend, including morning and evening services on Saturday and Sunday. The services each weekend are all planned around the same message and theme so no matter what time you attend or which location they are roughly the same service.

Worship services at Alpine Church are contemporary using Christian rock and focused around a sermon.

As a nondenominational Evangelical church, they focus on the following things:

• Accepting Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior and developing a personal relationship with him.
• The Bible as the Word of God and the spiritual and practical guide of mankind.
• One God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (the Trinity).
• Baptism as a symbol of your commitment to Jesus after accepting him as your Savior.

I have several family members that attend Alpine Church, all of them converts, as well as a couple friends. Alpine has seemed to really enhanced their lives and made them seem a lot more at peace and much more loving towards all people. I'm really happy and grateful that this has seemed to add so much meaning to their lives.

There's not much else to say since it isn't attached to a particular denomination. I'm looking forward to this one and I'll let you know how everything goes.

Until next time, peace be with you.