Today’s church report will be a little different. There is one church that’s been on my list to visit which I’ve been avoiding. I’ve decided I’m not going. It’s a church whose location appears to be someone’s house. Frankly that’s intimidating. A church building acts as more of a public space. One can enter without knocking or asking permission during a specific portion of Sunday and often other days too. But in someone’s home it feels different. Without being invited it seems intrusive. Without knowing anyone there it seems unsafe. So I’m attending from afar this time.
The church has a handful of videos on YouTube under MrPastorPeter. There is was a blog: Grand Street Church Pastors Blog
The last blog entry is from 2010. Ostensibly it continues at a new site…but the link doesn’t work. YouTube is much more current. The video on top is from 3/17/13.
The video is about 15 minutes long and of poor sound quality. It includes sermon of around 9 mins, an unintelligible message from a woman which might be prayer*, and the lead-in to communion with Lord’s Prayer by the deacon who is being advanced to pastor in one week’s time.
The content of the sermon was very simplistic. It compared the Christian life to running in a race. There only seem to be a couple similarities however; you have judges and they decide if you win. In this case winning equals going to heaven. We were also told that God loves us, we have to do our best, and that we are saved by grace which we do not deserve. I fail to see how both these metaphors can work. Winning a race and receiving a prize is more like the opposite of getting something undeserved. Besides the sloppy content, the delivery was halting, as if the pastor can’t read or speak well. He even mispronounced several words.
The church video ended with communion. The three members we already saw came up to take communion and two additional women also. If all members took communion this is a congregation of five adults- and the baby that the pastor was holding at one point.
Overall I found it to be definitely Christian but also extremely disorganized and amateurish. I probably don’t need to attend one for real if this is all I’d find there. Since I’m not even sure it still exists attendance might be impossible anyways.
*This isn’t a criticism of content. The sound is so poor I can’t make out what this woman is saying except ‘amen’ at the end.