I tried to go to church...

So, as a guy who doesn't have many Sundays off I was excited to be able to visit somewhere and see what they do and how they do it. Saturday evening I jumped online to start looking over my options. I started in the Nashville area, looked several over, decided which one I wanted to visit, looked at the map to see how far it was, went back to the church's website to check service times only to find that they had canceled services! I checked my #2 choice - canceled, #3 choice - canceled! So then I started checking locally, canceled! In their defense the roads are still very covered in snow / ice.

Plan B.

Ok, there are churches that stream their services. I'll try that and see what that feels like.

Sunday morning, sleeping late (don't get to do that often), planning on watching the 10:30 stream. Kevin wakes me up in a panic trying to get video on the front screens, we quickly figure it out and Heritage is good to go. Back to sleep.

I wake up in time for service, sure, I was a little late, but I got there. I checked Westover in Austin. No streaming today. Hmm, the website says that it streams the services, it lies. I head to Prestoncrest - bam - there is is, streaming church. You can only imagine my delight to find out that it's Budget Sunday! Joy, oh Joy. I can do a budget Sunday, but I can't do one that stops every few seconds while it buffers the video. Plus it doesn't pick up where it paused, it jumps ahead so you are hearing a few seconds, then skipping ahead a few seconds. Can't do this.

So, if I can't stream live I'll watch a service from the archive. Back to Westover, I'm now attending their 1/17 service. We sing together for a while, but I'm really hungry so I pause the video to start waffles in the toaster, hit play, listen for a while until the toaster pops. I find that I don't sing along very well with waffles in my mouth but a guy's gotta eat or die so I finish the waffles. Pause, rinse the waffle plate because nobody likes the smell of syrup when there are no waffles left over. I watch some more, Joann calls, I pause. We visit for a few minutes as she heads to lunch, then back to church. Communion was strange, not being there to have someone hand you a tray, not passing it to someone, not really Sharing The Lord. We move to the message, it's a good one. They are stressing "One More", that we need to constantly look for one more person to help, to feed, to bring into a relationship to Christ. It's a good thing. I even took notes! (The advantage of having a computer in front of you during church!). Two points that really hit home are:

• In the hopes of reaaching "one more" we will continue to look at change, in how we do things, in schedule, in all areas.
• Traditions can become the measure of how we judge others. We can't honor traditions above God.

I'll have to think on those for a while, we need to be willing to do the same to help "one more".

Church is over. Sure, I took another phone call or two during the service and opened a bag of socks. Surely that didn't distract me from the service? Distraction are so easy when it's just you and a computer. Well, I've tried the online church thing and it was indeed better than not doing anything, but it in no way comes near to what the real thing is. The smiles, the hugs, seeing others worship, watching God move in them, having someone hand you the communion tray, offering the body of Christ, sharing time with others, these are what make church work. These are the things I missed here in my hotel room.

Next Sunday should find me at my favorite place to be, Heritage. I'm looking forward to it.

John