New Church Experiences

Since my home church is in Canada I am following a mentor’s suggestion in experiencing a variety of different churches over the summer here in the States.   I am letting God lead me to where He wants me to go.  The first Sunday I went to a non-denominational Church in Indiana with my cousins up there.   Since then I don’t know for sure where I’m going to church until the Saturday before or the Sunday morning of.   I just let God put on my heart where He want’s me to go, and He does a good job of not telling me until I need to know.   I went to a Presbyterian Church for the first time and I went to a Methodist Church for the first time - this was also the first time I experienced baby baptisms.   This past week I had the thought, “since I’m trying different churches I would like to experience a Catholic Church.”  I looked into a Catholic church that my friend goes to and learned a few details and format and beliefs, and prepped myself to go that Sunday.  However, God didn’t let me have any peace about that decision.  I asked Him about it and He told me that I was not letting Him lead me, I was making my own decisions, based off of what I wanted to do, not what He wanted me to do.  So I asked Him where He wanted me to go.  Saturday He told me that He wanted me to go to this little church I had driven by for years, but never attuned.  

Not knowing what time there services were I Googled the church name and found that they don’t have a website, and their mailbox for their phone is full.   I found a small handful of reviews on the church that were mostly negative.  Normally that wouldn’t scare me too much for almost all churches will have some people that don’t like it, but what scared me was the reviews stated, “5-Star cult” and such statements.  They explained about some of the beliefs of the church and all that.  I asked a handful of people for prayer, and I didn’t know if I was really prepared to go – I didn’t even know if I was willing to go.   Sunday morning came and I decided to go with God reminding me that “Whom shall I fear?”  God is with me, He called me to go to this church and He has a plan from it.   So I went….

“How was it?” you ask…. Lets just say that I won’t purposely go there again unless God directly calls me to.  They praised God, Jesus as Christ and the Cross.   They said things in the name of Jesus and praised Him, yet there were other things too (I won’t write them here, but I can tell you if you ask me sometime).  Other things that made me agree with the online reviewers.  This church really seemed like a cult.   Jesus wasn’t the only one they looked to….

I'm still praying about it, for I don't know exactly what God wanted me to get out of it yet.  Except maybe for the Church Family feel.   Unlike almost every church I've been in, I felt welcomed as soon as I had one foot in the door.  There wasn't just greeters, there were people who seemed to care, people to immediately engaged in conversation and more people quickly joined.   I think I met every person in that building, they all throughout the day came up to talk to me, to introduce themselves and welcome me.   I've never had such a welcoming experience at a church before.