Church "Shopping" (Again): First of all, what a vulgar term. To think of a community of people as a commodity like a box of cereal to be evaluated alongside so many other multi-colored boxes on a store shelf. Which is the best "buy" for me. Which church is my "brand"?
Yet that's what it's often like selecting a church in America as many churches have what seems to me a distinct brand identity.
But before I launch into a tirade on church branding, Dungeons and Dragons, and Pastafarianism, let me briefly update everyone on our family's "spiritual status".
We have been attending the evening worship service of Church of the Redeemer in the Dunwoody area of Atlanta. It has been an excellent and most loving community with beautiful worship and caring people. The downside has been that it is a bit of a drive for us which is why we go in the evening so that it doesn't feel that our entire day has been consumed by church activity. The other slight downside of the evening worship is that children's worship / Sunday school / child care was a sort of cummunal activity shared among the three families with young kids. Unfortunately, the other two families have recently decided to make the jump to morning worship leaving us as the only family in the evening with conversational (I'm not sure of what other adjective really works here) children.
So, we're very sadly looking around at other churches that are closer to home that we could attend on a Sunday morning without feeling like the entire day was spent in the process of getting to and from a church service. This has also forced me to re-think and re-evaluate my values and thoughts around church.
First off is the sheer volume of variety that exists in the area. I feel like I'm at a point in life when I'm making up a new D&D character for a campaign (and unfortunately all I can find are four sided die to roll for my character attributes... but I digress ;-) ) and now I come to the point of choosing my "character allignment". There are so many choices with the broad Christian label that I feel very overwhelemd. Furthermore, the variation between Baptist A and Baptist B is often greater than the variation between the same Baptist A and Metodist A. So why even bother with denominational taxonomy as a guidline? The "Lawful Good" Presbyterians, "Chaotic Good" Baptists, and "Lawful Neutral" Unitarians can all seem to look alike once you walk into the doors of the "worship hall". It is often the wide variety of the creatures that inhabit these hall that seem to make the difference between churches and the choice of creatures that fill the halls of these worship centers would even stymie Gary Gygax.
I think I just lost the train of thought in my analogy... where was I? Oh yeah- church shopping!
We went to Roswell UMC yesterday. It was pretty nice. In and out in about an hour. The church is about 15 minutes from our front door. Good kids program. Big and well resourced but doesn't feel like a shopping mall. And I saw many people from my own community there. And this is when I had my "ah ha" moment.
I had been going to a church to serve my own needs- cool worship and cool people. Maybe I should think abuot going somewhere to plug into my local community so that I can learn how to serve my neighbors? Perhaps this is more important when you live in a city that has the 2nd worst traffic in the United States? Maybe I need to get over the cool church thing and plug into my own community...
As a side note, looking around at different churches also makes you re-think some basic theological premises. I've noticed two interesting trends in the world today. First is that it appears that "global warming" is on the retreat. Global temperatures are seemingly dropping and even militant environmentalists have exchanged that term "global warming" for "climate change". The other trend has been the dramatic increase in piracy off of the horn of Africa. Now, what I find amazing is that in January 2005, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster made the bold correlation that global warming was caused by the decrease in piracy. Is it just a mere coincidence that global temperatures are now dropping while Somalia pirates are increasing their activity? Have I been touched by his Noodly Appendage? Do I hear a R-Amen? have been living in the North Atlanta suburb of Roswell since 2007. The cast of characters includes:
- Scott: the pater familias
- Dena: Queen of the house
- Elena: 1st grade dreamer
- Elise: rambunctious pre-K princess
- Escher: the little prince
Elise's 5 year B-day: Elise turned 5 about a week and a half ago. We celebrated with a very special weekend. This will probably take more than one post. But here are some of the pics...
Pink pancakes with candles to start the day, June 6.
Here she is posing with some the booty from various family members.
Granny (Scott's mom) sends a bouquet of daisies every year to Elise.
I took her on a special "date" with mommy for a "manicure & pedicure". She is so much a princess and loved it!
...Getting her finger nails painted.
...pretty pink nails with blue flowers painted on them. 
mistree of the wiches : wans ther was a feery .that cood doo majik on wiches .she crst a spel on the wiches .that the necst wich born wood hav a noes of a pig .it was a boy.he got hiden for his noes .wen he was 64 he said i doent liec me this waey .he blos and his noes chaenges for efor. 
Life Imitates Art: [video]http://www.youtube.com/v/Ri3zqNs1U48[/video] 
Escher Sketch for the latest news on the youngest member of the Friderich Fam!