We go to church up north

Valley Community Church, Sumas, WashingtonIn the news, thousands of people are walking toward the United States border. On Sunday, Mindy and I were the only ones walking toward the border. We were coming from Canada in the north, rather than through Mexico from the south, but I wasn’t completely anxiety-free.

This month we’re going to the furthest north, south, east, and west churches in Washington State, and this week we went north. Mindy came across Sumas, a town that’s right on the Canadian border. It’s the northernmost town in Washington -- and in the contiguous US -- because of a surveying error that placed part of the town north of the 49th parallel. Post office boxes seem to be the main business in town; among other things, we read that Canadians have their Amazon purchases delivered to mailboxes on the US side of the border.

Mindy had her passport with her, but mine has expired. She wanted to cross the border for the fun of it, so we walked toward the checkpoint, and I figured I’d wait while she crossed and came back. Instead, a border guard greeted us and told us we’d already crossed the invisible line. I ended up going through the border with just my (not enhanced) driver’s license, but we made it back in plenty of time for church.

Valley Community Church is just a block and a half south of the border, on the south side of Garfield, the street the 49th parallel runs through. We were surprised to learn that we were further north than everything in Maine. We had another surprise when we looked closely at the sign for the church. In new clear print we could read, “Valley Community Church, Sun. 10:30 AM - Youth Ministry - MOPS - Food Bank.” But we could also read, in very faint, faded lettering, a former incarnation of the sign: “Desperado’s Saloon - Pull Tabs - Dining - Dancing”. (We briefly debated whether this would also count as our bar visit for the week. We ruled it out.)

We walked in the front door from the street, and we soon saw that most people came through the back door by the parking lot. We missed picking up a bulletin, but we were greeted by Philomena. “You came on a good day, we’re having a potluck...We’re all family here.”

As the worship service began, Pastor Jeff introduced himself and said, “All you kids that are part of the Christmas program, you are dismissed.” As they headed to another room to practice, Jeff played a guitar and led the singing. He told people, “Feel free to stand or sit, sing or be quiet in the presence of God.”

Pastor Cliff came forward to lead “Body Ministry” time. “This is the time in the service when it is important to share. A word of knowledge, a word of wisdom.” Some people shared Scripture and others shared what was on their hearts. One man asked for prayer for “children going through things they should never have to go through.” Obviously there were congregants with a charismatic backgrounds, because during this time many joined in, “Thank you, Jesus.”

Pastor Jeff dismissed another group, “The teens can go to your class. You’ll be missed, but you can go to your class.” He then gave some announcements, “Before we go to the Word -- next week is Harvest Festival. You know the drill. Because of the festival we won’t have prayer meeting next Sunday night.” He finished with an announcement about what was happening after the worship service, “Please stay for the potluck. We need your help to eat all the food.”

Pastor Jeff’s sermon continued a year long series on “Like Jesus.” This sermon was part three of “A Friend of Sinners… Like Jesus.” The Scripture passage was Luke 6: 27 - 42, which included Jesus’ instructions on loving your enemies. Jeff took some time to talk about the need to be kind to people you disagree with on social media. (Even if they disagree with your politics? Wow. That seems rather counter cultural.) Insulting people, he pointed out, is “not the will of God. How are we advancing the Word of God in that person’s life?”

After the sermon, we shared communion. Oyster crackers served as the bread, a very practical and tasty choice more churches should consider. It seemed the service was over, but Marguerite said not yet. October is Pastor Appreciation Month and she, along with Philomena, brought forward gifts for Pastors Jeff and Cliff. (There is another pastor, Bud, who was home sick. His gift was left at the church for him.) Marguerite said, “Not only does Pastor give us good words, he works full time, and raises a family, and is a good man.”

We stayed for the potluck and enjoyed the chili, meatballs, salad, and carmel corn (and all the other desserts, too). I asked Jim what he appreciated about Valley Community Church. He said he came for the opportunity to lead Royal Rangers, an Assemblies of God boys’ scouting-type ministry.

Later, when we were able to talk to Pastor Jeff. He came when the church was planted over a decade ago. He was then an associate pastor, but when the founding pastor moved to Colorado, he asked Jeff to take his place. As Marguerite mentioned, Jeff is bi-vocational, working full-time at a door company. (I worked for a door manufacturer myself during college summers -- Cal-Wood Door in Rohnert Park.)

Mindy and I began to this project to see how God is working in HIs church in this country, and it was good to see He is doing good things even at the far edges.

We go to three churches at the same time

Eastridge Church, Seattle, Washington
For most of the almost four years we’ve been blogging about churches, we’ve been one-time visitors -- and visitors only. We’ve mostly gone to churches with no intention of returning on a regular basis. We started slowly in 2014 by visiting just a few local churches near our home in Sonoma County, California. In 2015, we visited churches throughout California (by theme, as some of you may recall). We spent 2016 traveling from state to state, visiting at least one church in each. When that trip was over, we moved to Fresno, California, early in 2017. We felt we already had a home church  at The Bridge, though we still visited other churches most weeks.

Over the past month, life has changed for us. Last week, we moved to Seattle, Washington, and we’re looking for a new church home. When we visit churches now, we’ll usually be thinking, is this where we want to stay? Even if we find the perfect (for us) church in the next few weeks, we plan to keep visiting churches through the end of this year. But we need a home base. If you’re a praying person, please pray for our search for a church home.

Don’t expect these posts to change a lot, though. We don’t expect to announce either, “Eureka! We’ve found our church!” or “Yuck! We won’t be be coming back here!” This blog is about first visits, and we always want to be kind. If we don’t want to return to a church, it wouldn’t be kind to announce it to the world, and if we really like a church on a first visit, we’re unlikely to decide to stay until we’ve visited several times --- and we don’t plan to write about those visits.

So enough preliminares. This week we visited the West Seattle campus of Eastridge Church, a multi-site church. The much larger Eastridge campus is in Issaquah (about a half an hour’s drive away). The church’s third campus is in Addis, Ethiopia (yup, the one in Africa). We were delighted that we’d visited on a Sunday when we got to hear a lot about that third campus.

The teaching time, televised from the Issaquah campus, was Pastor Steve Jamison’s interview of Doug and Tasha Myers (who lead the Addis congregation). Doug and Steve have a long relationship.

When Doug was 12 years old, he felt the call to missions while listening to one of Jamison’s sermons. Years later, Doug went on to work as a youth pastor under Jamison. During that time, the church leadership asked Doug where he thought he should be, and he said Africa. They asked what was keeping him from Africa and he said school debts. So the church made a commitment to pay off those debts.

Doug and Tasha have served years in Africa. As missionaries with the Assemblies of God, at first they followed traditional methods of ministering in rural areas. The emphasis had been on training local pastors for ministry, all in native languages, but they had a vision for a different kind of ministry.

Addis, Ethiopia is the headquarters for the African Union, a 55-nation organization that deals with economic issues, treaties, health concerns, etc. Representatives from all over the world, from the Americas, Europe, and Asia, to work with the Union, and the official working language for the African Union is English. So Doug and Tasha have begun an English language international congregation in Addis. The ministry is growing, so Pastor Jamison challenged the two congregations to raise $50,000 for the congregation in Addis.

We enjoyed worshipping with the people of the West Seattle campus. During the singing time, people were encouraged to come forward with prayer requests, for physical healing, work, financial needs, decision making.

After announcements, people were encouraged to chat over coffee, strawberries, melons, bagels, donuts and other treats before returning to the sanctuary for the message. John introduced himself, though he was a visitor as well. He is here from India to visit his daughter.

I met Andy and asked him why he attended this church. He said his wife wanted to go to a community church. I asked how long he’d been attending there, and he nodded at his daughter, who was 12, and said they’d been attending since she was little.

After the service ended, we were able to spend a little more time chatting with people. Mindy chatted with Heather, who’s Pastor Jamison’s executive assistant, while I talked with her husband, Brian. I asked what he liked about the church.

He noted that the West Seattle campus had the advantages of a small church, so you can get to know people. (Craig, the campus pastor, said during the service, “It’s good to have a critical mass in the room.”) Brian said they also benefit from the large campus in Issaquah. (For instance, the kids from West Seattle will be bussed over to the Issaquah campus to share their Vacation Bible School.)

We loved being in one place, West Seattle, and yet feeling a part of the church a half hour and half a world away. That's how the Church Universal works.

We Go to Church for the Children

Northpark Community Church, Fresno, California
You just can’t stop some pastors from preaching. Northpark Community Church, along with other Fresno and Clovis churches, is participating in 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. Each evening of those three weeks, different churches are hosting evening worship. Bob Willis, pastor of Northpark, said he’d already planned his sermon for the evening when he received a request to host His Little Feet, a children’s choir.

Willis wasn’t about to say “no” to orphans -- he knows James 1 says that true religion is about caring for orphans (and widows -- but hosting the choir didn’t stop him from getting his sermon points in.

Before he introduced the choir, he delivered his three points about three aspects of fasting: first, that, as Jesus taught, there is a private aspect of fasting (Matthew 6); second, there is a corporate aspect to fasting (I Samuel 7); and third, fasting should always go along with doing good works. (He cited Isaiah 58 as his text for this point, using a wonderful translation for verse 7: “Give clothes to those who need them and don’t hide from relatives that need your help.”) He gave a decent sermon in under ten minutes, though I’m sure he would have taken more time without the choir. I wouldn’t mind if more pastors knew the short sermon can be done.

But then the choir came forward. There were seventeen children in the choir, orphans or near orphans representing three continents: Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Though, perhaps you could say there were eighteen (36? Should we count one foot for each child or two?) “Little Feet” there; a graduated member of the choir was in the audience, and somebody said, “Once you’re His Little Feet, you’ll always be.” The foot reference comes from Isaiah 52:7, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of them who bring good news”.

The children are aged 7 to 13 and come from India, Kenya, and Haiti but sing primarily in English -- Amharic, Kiswahili, Spanish, and Mizo are also part of their music. The children gain confidence and skills to equip them for vocations and leadership positions in the future. Members of the choir attend His Little Feet Training Academy while they’re on tour. They didn’t perform many songs, but their voices were clear and sweet, and they performed with cheer and energy.

The choir partners with the ministry of Compassion International, which sponsors needy children throughout the world, as well as several other global ministries. After the choir’s performance, a video showed the work of the ministry along with four ways people could contribute to children’s lives: a simple one time financial gift, mission trips, monthly child sponsorship (since I don’t drink coffee, I was glad they didn’t use the “for less than the cost of your daily cup of coffee” cliche that always seems to be used in such presentations). Finally, as a major commitment, adoption of needy children was mentioned.

I appreciated that the service was kept at about an hour, since a number of small children were in attendance. Older children, perhaps middle-school aged, were called forward to offer the closing prayers, one praying for orphans and children in need, another for widows, and a third for families. I appreciated that children from the church were given an important part of the service.

After those prayers, there were announcements about upcoming worship services during the remainder of the 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. We were glad to know that people were praying and fasting alone, together, and that they were doing good works as well (see, Pastor Willis, I got your points!).

We go to Church on our Street in Fresno

The Quest Church, Fresno, California

“Please let us know if there’s something you think we’re doing wrong,” we were urged by both a parishioner and the pastor. We had explained we were just visiting and that we’re committed to another church, and yet they seemed excited to hear what we experienced.

It can be odd to be a “professional” church visitor. There are churches we’ve visited where no one really greets us at all, or just shakes hands during the greeting time, mumbles “Good morning” and turns to shake hands with someone else. In those churches we haven’t needed to bother with the awkward explanations that lead us to say we’ll be writing about their church in our blog.

There are also churches where someone asks fairly quickly, “Is this your first time with us?” (This happens most often in churches where everyone knows everyone, and the fact that we’re new is readily apparent. Sometimes when we explain why we’re visiting, the greeter moves along very quickly. If we won’t be back, why would they bother getting to know us?

On the other hand, at The Quest Church, we were greeted by Susie fairly quickly after we came on property. She introduced herself and asked about us. When we told her about last year’s project to visit a church in every state, she told us about the pastor’s parents and their adventure of going to different states to help with the construction of churches. (She also showed us where the coffee and snacks were served and where people gathered before and between worship services.) And as I mentioned above, when we mentioned we write about churches, she was eager to learn what we thought, especially about how the church could do things better. That’s a very healthy perspective to have, but it’s sadly lacking in a number of churches.

Susie introduced us to her husband, Dan, and they told us a little about the church building itself. The Quest used to meet at Clovis High School, but when construction began at the school, the congregation had no place to meet. This was a couple of years ago, and that was when the Assembly of God denomination decided to gift the building to The Quest, which is an Assembly of God Church. Another AG church had been on the property years before, but that congregation left the building to the denomination.

When The Quest received the building, it hadn’t been particularly well cared for, and there was a lot of work to be done. The sanctuary didn’t even have heating or air conditioning and had single pane windows. (Despite the image some have of California in their heads, there are many parts of the state where it does get cold. Fresno is a place that can get very, very warm.) So the congregation, with limited resources, has worked to fix up the facilities.

We were enjoying our refreshments (oranges and some very excellent cookies among other things) in the Great Room, the fellowship hall. We heard that the room had been quite the mess when The Quest moved in, but a woman in the church donated money she’d inherited from her father’s to put the room into shape. Susie also noted that the children’s play equipment was another improvement on the grounds. She had seen a news story about a local pedestrian mall being redone,and she made the phone calls to find out that the old children’s play equipment could be purchased at a greatly reduced rate. And the kids love it. (The congregation also bought some park benches from Fulton Mall as well.)

As we stood talking In the patio area before the worship service began, Pastor Dave Erickson introduced himself and took time to talk to us. He told us more about the move from Clovis and the gift of the facilities. When we mentioned our visits to bars along with churches, he encouraged us in that work. He spoke of the church’s priority of reaching the unchurched and mentioned the Life Recovery Group that meets on Mondays at the church. As we spoke, we heard the service starting inside.

After some singing, there was a greeting time. As mentioned above, sometimes during church greeting times, everyone shakes hands and says “Good Morning” (or “Peace” in places where the peace is passed). But here, most people introduced themselves and engaged us in conversation. I was able to ask Dave about what he appreciated about the church. “People are welcoming here, there are no judgments. We all have a past.” (That kind of acceptance is what people often tell us they are looking for in a church.)

Pastor Dave called out “Visiting hours are over!” as the timer on the screen reached 0:00, and everyone returned to their seats. He introduced a new series, “Life of a Champion” and asked if there were any Seattle Seahawks fans in the building.

The response was silence. (I thought I showed good judgement and restraint by not booing the Hawks -- but that’s just me) He played a video of Christians on the Seahawks talking about the importance of character and integrity and trusting in Christ. The NFL video made sense as it was Super Bowl Sunday. (I’ll admit that if it had been a video with New England Patriot players, I probably couldn’t have restrained booing a bit.)

After the video, Pastor Dave proceeded with his message on the disciplines required for the “Life of a Champion.”  He talked about the problems of being just average. “When we choose ‘average’ it’s just as close to the bottom as it is to the top.”  He said that God wants more for us than just “average.” He stressed the importance of practicing the disciplines taught in Scripture to live an above average life.

I appreciated that Pastor Dave gives people the opportunity to ask questions on the sermon through texting (or as the message on the screen said, “Text QUESTions”). There are also small groups (Connection Groups) that meet during the week to discuss the sermon. (Susie invited us to the group that meets in their home. The bulletin reads, “There’s always room on the couch… to grow with us.”)

The service concluded with video announcements. People were invited to a Super Bowl party at the church and were encouraged to bring snacks and friends to watch the game on their “big screen.” They also showed a video of a recent church snow trip, showing people of a variety of ages having a very good time together.

I hope Susie and Pastor Dave won’t be too disappointed to read that I don’t have anything to write about what the church is doing wrong. We observed a kind and loving group of people looking to serve God and each other. All good from what we could see.

Statistics

Service Length: 1 hour 15 minutes

Sermon Length: 32 minutes (including video)

Visitor Treatment: Susie greeted us almost as soon as we walked in (most people were still outside, but we didn’t know that yet). She introduced us to several people, including her husband Dan. During the greeting time, she came over to Mindy to invite us to the Connection Group that meets in their home on Wednesday evenings. Meanwhile, a number of people introduced themselves to each of us and talked to us. Visitors and everybody else were encouraged to fill out a connection card and put it in the offering box at the back of the sanctuary.

Followup by Tuesday Morning: none

Our Rough Count: 38

Probable Ushers’ Count: 55

Snacks: coffee, hot water for tea, toffee-doodle cookies, juice boxes, muffins and fresh oranges

Musicians: acoustic guitars and electric bass (2 men)

Keyboards (woman)

Drums (woman)

Vocals (2 women)

Songs: “Glory to God”

“Mighty to Save”

“Even So Come”

“Always”

“One Thing”

Distance to Church: ¾ block

Open WiFi: no

Tie/Suit Count: none

Church Website: http://www.faithisaquest.com/

We Go to Church in Montana

Dillon Assembly of God, Dillon

Sometimes this year, picking a church has come down to geography, as it did last week.

We needed to be in Twin Falls, Idaho, by 6:00 Sunday night. The Dodge Caravan has been pretty faithful throughout the year, but the fewer weather challenges we can give it the better, and it looked like snow was on the way. So we choose Dillon, Montana, as the town where we’d find a place to worship, because it was in the southwest portion of the state.

Then we did our internet research to find a church and came upon the website for Dillon Assembly of God. There were a couple of things in their “What to Expect” page that appealed to us. The first was this statement, “As a guest we want you to remain as anonymous as you want to be. If you are looking for a connection, then we will be happy to greet and introduce you.” We were interested in seeing how well they’d manage to strike that balance.

On that same page we read, “We offer a Bible Study at 9:00 am and our Worship Service [at] 10:00 am. Service consists of a worship time, announcements, and a brief message from Pastor Ryan Spurlock.”  What caught my attention there was the word “brief,” because I thought that was a word that might really appeal to some visitors, and because it’s interesting to see how pastors define that word for themselves when they’re speaking. As it turns out, we may never know what “brief” means to Pastor Ryan (whose family photo was featured on that web page).

We arrived at the church at about quarter to nine and found the door to the church unlocked, though we didn’t see any cars in the parking lot or on the street. We went inside and looked around. On the back wall with other Christmas cards, we saw a card from Pastor Ryan to the congregation thanking them for the chance to serve at the Dillon Assembly of God Church.

Not long after we read the card, Gene arrived. He greeted us warmly and confirmed that Pastor Ryan had left in July. In a minute or two, Dave and Ramona arrived, and we went downstairs for Bible Study. Ramona went to work preparing for the children’s Sunday School class (she had cookies that Gene fruitlessly tried to snitch), and Dave told us that since Pastor Ryan departed, the Bible Study was usually attended only by Gene, Ramona, and Dave. They had been working their way through 1st John. Gene bemoaned the lack of people attending and talked about people in the community following “the idols of hunting and fishing.”

Dave did most of the talking through the class. I can’t say I’d agree with his theological take on the book. He argues that we can live sinfree, perfect lives, and takes I John 1:8 (“If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us”) as only referring to Original Sin, what we are born into. Though I agree that God does work in us to overcome sin in various areas of our lives, I don’t see that perfection in anyone in Scripture beside Jesus (and I’m looking at you, Apostles). He talked about another local church that didn’t teach the perfectibility of Christians on earth and implied that this was the cause of a number of divorces in the church. I think my marriage would undergo much more strain if I claimed I had achieved a state of sinlessness.

Dave noted that this would be his last week teaching I John, because the next week a new pastor was coming, and “he’ll have his thing.” Time was up, and we went upstairs for the worship service.

Neil introduced himself before the service got started, and he asked us if we were visiting in town (he said they couldn’t help but notice when a new car parked outside. And our car does have California plates and stickers from around the country). The start of the worship service was delayed by our chatting, since Neil was leading the service. No one seemed to mind.

To start the service, Neil announced the news we’d heard in Bible Study, “This is our last Sunday pastorless. Pastor James will be here next weekend. It has been a long road for a lot of us, a hard last few months. But if you’ve had a chance to meet James and Hannah, they have a lot of energy! But we’ll still need to come alongside him and share the load.”

After a time of singing (which happily included a Christmas carol), Neil asked if anyone had a word of encouragement. He asked Mindy and me if we would mind saying a bit about our adventure this year, which we’re always happy to do.

Before the sermon, there was a short video of a stand-up routine by the comic Brad Stine. (“They’re so polite to kids these days at schools. They said our boys had ADHD [Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder] while they just said I was an OLP [obnoxious little punk.”)

Another Dave (different than the Dave leading Bible Study) preached. This Dave is a leader of Chi Alpha, a Christian college ministry of the Assemblies of God Church, at UM Western. Dave explained he presented the comic video partly because it made him laugh, but also to introduce his topic: “Focus.”

With a new pastor coming, he said, the church would need to cast away distractions and focus on Jesus. He spoke of mistakes he’d made in his ministry when he’d focused on building his group instead of building the Kingdom of God.

He said he was glad the transition period was over, but now the church would have to focus outward and not just inwardly. “I believe that God has something big for this community. Imagine new people coming through these church doors and finding genuine God seekers looking to change the world...We need to be a sending church, and an edifying church. It’s going to be an exciting time… I’m excited about seeing more people on the missionary wall. We’re going to need to use a bigger wall. God is brewing something here in Dillon.”

I had a chance to talk to Dave of Chi Alpha after church. He talked about churches he’d seen that refused to focus outward and were therefore dying. But he was excited by what he’d seen of the new pastoral couple, James and Hannah, and believed God was going to do great things through them in the church.

During the service, Mindy and I looked out the window and saw the snow begin to fall. We wondered if we should leave early, to be sure we could make it through the pass to Idaho. Then we remembered we could trust God for the journey. We were happy to see this little congregation, after a difficult stretch, trusting God for the next part of their journey, too.

Statistics

Service Length: 1 hour 13 minutes

Sermon Length: 30 minutes

Visitor Treatment: We were greeted by several people both before and after the worship service. There wasn’t any way to record attendance that we noticed.

Followup by Tuesday Morning: none

Our Rough Count: 28

Probable Ushers’ Count: 30

Snacks: none

Musicians: acoustic guitar (man)

electric bass (man)

vocals (woman)

Songs: “Your Love Never Fails”

“I Want to be Used by You”

“Silent Night”

“Overcome”

“Give me Jesus” (worship team only)

Miles to Church: half a mile

Miles from Start: 45,098

Total 2016 Miles: 44,802

Church Website: dillonassembly.com