Churches:

Every time I visit a new church I tend to try and examine it relative to my own (this usually happens during the car ride home). I've gone to the same church all of my life, so I really enjoy experiencing different styles so I can expand my perspective. The easiest way to classify a church is to look into how conservative or liberal they are. What exactly does conservative or liberal mean? I don't know. Sometimes it's more of a feeling. Neither is necessarily better, but they're just different.

Anyway, the point I originally intended to make was that I like grassroots churches; churches that are started by people and ran by the community. This past Sunday I got the chance to attend Jay's church, called Horizons. Definitely a younger crowd than I'm used to (the average age at my church might be in the 60's), but I could sort of feel that the church exists because of the people. That is to say, the church doesn't exist because of the programs or because of the pastor or leaders. Unlike Lakewood. I probably shouldn't bash that church as much as I do, but oh well.

I hope within the next year to see more churches. Cedar Ridge had a hippy flavor to it. Keith's church in Lancaster had a neat conservative feel, though I noted that I was the only minority in a crowd of about 200. Maranatha I hit up on a snow day so I'm not really sure what a typical service there might be like. If you would like to take me to your home church, I would love to tag along. I promise that I won't be as critical as I am here.