Vacation Part 3

As I write this, I realize I haven't posted any pictures. I will do this.

Saturday night went off without a hitch. We attended Living Hope Church at their main campus. All in all, I'm very glad we went. The worship style was very much what I prefer...that is an edgy, guitar driven sound. There was one thing about the worship band that bugged me, but it is far too trivial for me to blog about. I realize that I am often guilty of picking things too death. Good church...needs more greeters. We were checking in our kids and the greeter took us to the wrong place. Oops! Parents are the pickiest, man. First impressions count for a lot!!

Sunday morning arrives and the plan is to attend Imago Dei Community (note the foreshadowing). We drive about 30 minutes to Franklin High School in downtown Portland only to find the doors locked. Now realize that I had checked and rechecked service times, meeting location both Saturday night and Sunday morning. The only people at the school besides Tricia and I and our kids were the 60+ visitors who showed up only to be as disappointed as we were. There was no sign...there were no instructions... no one had a clue. We stood around talking to some of the visitors for a while, and then about 9:30 (service was supposed to be at 9) a guy comes with a stack of flyers for Imago Dei's second annual BBQ and Baptism that's being held at a nearby State Park.

Remember, I'd checked and rechecked the website, just to avoid stuff like. Very frustrating. Because of the time and the way we were dressed, we opted not to try and make the BBQ. Instead we bumped up the next church.

With the change of plans, we now had time to attend the 10:30 service at Southlake. By far the friendlier and best laid out facility of the two we actually attended, Southlake reminded us a ton of Willow Creek. Now, to me that's a great complement in almost every way.

We liked the building so much, we want to bring our building team to see it. Magnificent and doable..

The worship service itself missed the mark with me a little. It was very well done, but it just wasn't the style that I prefer. I'm only talking about style, here...not wrong or right. It reminded me of Willow Creek of a few years ago. The songs weren't dated, they just seemed very performance oriented--probably very seeker friendly. Kinda the Darlene Zschech style...very polished and enthusiastic.

Pastor Kip was an outstanding speaker and the worship leader was very good and very personable and connected well, I believe, with their intended audience. Very much a great experience and if we find ourselves in the area again, we'd visit again gladly.

So there you have it... the three church plan that fell down to two. Still, a great and insightful weekend worshiping God with my family and with a bunch of very commited followers of Jesus Christ.