Well... today I have yet another edition of "Exploring Longview's Church Scene." This week we went to Saint Michael and All Angels Episcopal Church. In the past, the name of this church successfully weirded me out and even in the face of a lot of my good friends going there, I wouldn't go. Then over the summer I went with a lot of the crew that was still in town, at Dunny's prompting I think. This might have been pursuant to going to a wedding there, I can't remember which came first. In any event, I liked it and came to realize that the name wasn't really creepy and in any event, I shouldn't be driven away from a church by the name... especially in light of a really vibrant service and some really good preaching from Father Neil and Jeff Richardson.
Over the summer, Father Neil went on vacation and thus was replaced on a weekly basis by whatever local priest in the parish needed a spot to preach. Sometimes Dr. Watson preached and sometimes Jeff preached, and both were very good. This itinerant preaching varied from really good to really sucky. But the worship was solid and the fellowship good. Thus, after 2 years of on-again, off-again church visitation, I was encouraged to get back to church and thus prompted to do a bit of church shopping in Longview before settling at Saint Mike's... and thus the great exploration began.
Here we are, at the beginning of October and by a series of odd coincidences and interesting timing snafus, we found ourselves at Saint Mike's this morning. I was encouraged and uplifted by the worship, revitalized by the service, and renewed in spirit by the sermon. Neil preached a very good sermon on revival and apparently he's going to be doing a series on this in the next couple of weeks. And I think that this is going to mark an end to the great church hunting extravaganza for at least the immediate time-being. While I'm not 100% satisfied with Saint Mike's, I don't think that it's possible to be 100% satisfied with any earthly church and I really do feel like God is calling me to Saint Mike's. So, I guess that's where I'm going to start showing up every week. Incidentally, I apologize for a lack of any really odd/entertaining tidbits from church this morning... I guess that's the downside of going to a good church.
Posted by Vengeful Cynic at October 5, 2003 03:04 AM