Broad Is The Way

An article by Don Quixote    3 Comments

Michelle and I took the opportunity to finally visit Broad Way Christian Church on Sunday.

Do you recall the discussion we had about your church and their website? One of the things we mentioned was that your website should always be up to date and not include contradictory information? Well apparently BWCC didn’t quite read that issue of The Blog.

We were trying to figure out what time service started. Their website listed several different times. One part stated that they had two services one starting at 8:30 and the other starting 10:30. However another part said that they had one service and it started at 10:00. Needless to say it was rather confusing.

Erring on the side of caution we showed up at 10:00 and it turned out to be the right call. Apparently now they have Sunday School at 8:30, a pre-worship service at 9:30, and church at 10:00.

Now before I get into my nitty gritty details I need to mention that the folks seem to be pretty genuine, mission focused, and a heart for the poor. More than one person has said that they heard that this is a really good church so I have to believe it, but for now, it’s not just for me.

Their worship service just didn’t do anything for me at all. I’m more of an upbeat modern chorus sort of fella, and while they had the words on screen, everything felt just a beat too slow. To add to the distraction this was one of the busiest churches I’ve been in for a while. The number of times the folks sitting around us got up and left and returned and got up and talked to those around them was astounding.

I was encouraged by the fact that they had a baptism and child dedication (though I’m not really keen on those). About 30 or so minutes into the service they called all the children down and had a “children’s” sermon. Now I’m a pretty big fan of those because I believe they can be powerful tools for both the children they are directed at and the adults who are listening. They are an excellent way to simplify important truths and force people to think of things in a new light.

This was not one of those occasions. I am sure the woman who was doing it meant well, but I think she was missing the point. Whenever you ask 5 years old if they have anything to “testify” about from their prayer times, you’re in the wrong place. You cannot use terms like “pray without ceasing” for children. To kick it all off it was in that false, dramatic sing song, overly emotional voice. She went on, and on and on.

More singing.

Then the baptism. This was the one real high light because right in the middle of the song it was like the Holy Spirit grabbed hold of the congregation, the tempo picked up and the song was awesome.

But then it was over again.

Followed by some more off tempo singing and a guy who updated us on a missing trip he was going to take. More singing.

At this point it was 11:35 and the sermon hadn’t even started yet. Ugh.

The sermon was pretty good, nothing great, but solid. However at this point I wasn’t really into it. Plus it’s never a good idea to read an entire chapter of Exodus as your opener.

How did it all end? I don’t know. At 5 after 12 with two more illustrations and more singing to go, I had enough and drug Michelle out.

I can spend two hours in a service, but just not 2 hours in this one. If you are going to have lots of extras on a Sunday, then you need to adjust your service accordingly. I understand they are looking for a new minister and the situation might be unusual, so we will give them another shot after we look at the others on our list.

It wasn’t a bad church, it just wasn’t the place for us.

We won’t be visiting a new church this Sunday because I’ll be in D.C., but I’ll keep you posted as we go.