What is Church?

For those who know me well, you know that I grew up in a Baptist family...as a "PK" (pastor's kid), attended small Christian schools and then a large Christian university and still hold the values of the Bible and church community to be important to my life. If you didn't know that, now you do! While in college I began my own search for a church that fit my needs of community, style of worship, and that preached the Gospel and not a "feel good" message. That search continued when I moved to Raleigh, and I was blessed to call Providence my church home for almost 3 years (shout out to my FLC peeps!). That search also followed me to DC where I attended Mark Dever's church Capitol Hill Baptst...and now I face the same search here in LA.


As I experience every day, West Coast living is so different from East Coast and the church is not exempt from this. You may be wondering, how do I go about finding a church in each place I move to? I google and talk to people who have lived in that area. For my move to LA my friend Jennifer Prentice (who I first met while living in Raleigh and now lives in the Central Coast area) was very helpful in chatting it up with her friends in and around LA to come up with some church recommendations for me. After pulling up the church websites to review their statements of beliefs/times of services/etc I then google their locations and just kinda go from there! 


This past Sunday was my first chance to "church shop" and as you've come to expect, yes, it was interesting. You have to keep in mind that in DC the church I attended was in the District, it was a young crowd in power suits who worked on the Hill, it was type A, conservative, met in an old church, and a bit more traditional than I prefer, but the teaching was challenging. The first church in LA I decided to try was The Hollywood Church. After some research I learned that they were part of the Acts 29 church movement and is located in the Hollywood area at the Michael Jackson Auditorium. So like the little adventurer that I've become I grabbed my Bible, put on my Sunday duds and set the GPS. You know that phrase, you can't judge a book by it's cover? I shouldn't have judged the location by a name. Turns out the MJ auditorium was located at a run down school and only seated about 200 ppl. Keep in mind, this is just my experience and impression: It was a very casual, young, new church and it was so opposite what I had just come from. They struggled to sing basic hymns that I had grown up with. But more importantly, no one welcomed me. Maybe this wouldn't bother some of you, but as the "new" person, I did want to be called out and be invited to join in their fellowship. I want to go to a friendly church, I want a "safe" social network in LA. I left a bit discouraged, no new friends and while the msg was Gospel based, it wasn't as theological as I was looking for. Later that night I went to the next church on my list, Mosaic. 


Now if I thought the Hollywood church was opposite DC, the Mosaic is then opposite Hollywood. Sorry if this is confusing. Getting to Mosaic was interesting as my GPS took me to the north end of the street and not the south end, which landed me in Chinatown! After circling the block a few times and resetting the GPS I found my way to the correct location...at a Mayan temple themed night club! I followed the droves of people in, found my way to the balcony and claimed a spot. The worship team was talented, but it was overpoweringly loud. The lights were...non-existant, but blue. The architecture, incredible but foreign from your typical church structure. The people were trendy and distracting---several girls had their small dogs on their laps and spent their time playing with them instead of opening their Bibles. The message, watered down. More time was spent discussing how qualified the pastor was to pick the best OJ since he's from Florida than on the Gospel. As soon as it was over the place cleared out and it just felt like "I went to church, yay, on with life". 


I realize, it might sound like I'm being really picky and it might sound like I have unrealistic expectations for church out here. I hope to eventually find something. Yes, I'm a bit discouraged, but I'm not giving up. To answer the question in my header, to me the church is a body of believers who come together to learn the Gospel to then live the Gospel. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the building looks like, what clothes the people wear, or what style of music they use in worship...to me it's what the people believe and how they live out those beliefs.