my church experiment: the results
the answers:
did anyone talk to me? yes.
did I feel like a number? yes.
did i sense any community? no.
but i'll go back.
i was sharing with my parents tonight that i'm expecting i might have some very fundamental differences with McLean, but its ok. I don't have to agree with everything a church publicly believes in order to be part of that church. i also learned and am thankful that i don't have to agree with everything my parents believe in order to live in their house. (thanks ma and dad). double bonus here.
so, mega churches are huge and overwhelming when you' alone and you know no one. now i understand a lot about people not choosing to be part of Mars for those kinds of reasons. not to say that i didn't think that was a legit reason, just that i've never been able to understand the feeling. but now i do.
i think if i'm going to go to a mega church, i'm just going to have to learn to get over a lot of things.
i think the first step is denying myself the right to list out the things that bothered me tonight. either i really am ok with having differences, or i'm not.
and i'm ok with it.
on the other hand, 10 points for McLean (moving to a point system...i digress...) on diversity. its a beautiful thing.
did anyone talk to me? yes.
did I feel like a number? yes.
did i sense any community? no.
but i'll go back.
i was sharing with my parents tonight that i'm expecting i might have some very fundamental differences with McLean, but its ok. I don't have to agree with everything a church publicly believes in order to be part of that church. i also learned and am thankful that i don't have to agree with everything my parents believe in order to live in their house. (thanks ma and dad). double bonus here.
so, mega churches are huge and overwhelming when you' alone and you know no one. now i understand a lot about people not choosing to be part of Mars for those kinds of reasons. not to say that i didn't think that was a legit reason, just that i've never been able to understand the feeling. but now i do.
i think if i'm going to go to a mega church, i'm just going to have to learn to get over a lot of things.
i think the first step is denying myself the right to list out the things that bothered me tonight. either i really am ok with having differences, or i'm not.
and i'm ok with it.
on the other hand, 10 points for McLean (moving to a point system...i digress...) on diversity. its a beautiful thing.
posted by Julie at
11:16 PM
2 Comments:
I 100% understand where you're coming from. Growing up (my dad's a pastor too), I knew almost everyone at church. Even at Mars, I felt I at least knew SOME people. But when Jon and I moved to Lansing- I had to go to church by myself because he was working. It was a really hard adjustment for me, still is.
Julie, glad to hear you're coming back! I definitely recommend that you check out Frontline, which is McLean's young adult service. The worship is more contemporary and the pastor is younger.
Frontline meets Sunday nights at 5:30 p.m. at MBC (around 2,000 young adults), and the Arlington Campus meets at 7:30 p.m. Mondays at the Rosslyn Spectrum (about 500 young adults).
Here are some other resources to check out about Frontline:
http://www.frontlinedc.com (main website)
http://blogs.frontlinedc.com (staff blog)
http://www.frontlinedc.com/internetcampus (Internet Campus)
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