Last Sunday, Pam and I attended The People’s Church in Franklin, Tenn., basically a suburb of Nashville. It was the last thing we did on vacation, before heading home. Just a month before, I had attended the MinistryCOM conference, which was hosted by The People’s Church. I thought it would be neat to actually attend a service there. So we attended the Grand Ole Opry on Saturday night, and the next morning attended a Music City church service.

It was a great experience. I loved the service, loved the music, loved the message. But first, let me back up and give you a negative first impression.

We arrived around 8:50, with the service scheduled to start at 9:15. Interestingly, nobody greeted us. Nobody said a word to us. I stood in the lobby for a bit, and I might as well not have existed. I picked up some literature at an information booth, and the lady sitting there said hello, but that’s it.

When we entered the sanctuary at 9:00, only a few people were there. We found a seat toward the front. A few more people gradually filtered in. But by 9:10, the place still seemed rather empty. But the worship team came out at 9:15, we sang a few songs, and suddenly I realized that the place was well-filled with people. And I realized, “That’s the way it works at Anchor—only a few people come early, a bunch of people settle in right at starting time, and they keep coming through the first couple of songs. Why should a Nashville church be any different?”

The worship team, led by Integrity artist Michael Neale, was outstanding. I’d heard the scaled-down version at MinistryCOM; on Sunday, there were seven singers and six instrumentalists. We sang about five songs, and I’m pretty sure we stood the whole time. Neale’s song “More and More” blew me away. Drop what you’re doing (which is, reading this blog), go to the iTunes store, and download that song right now. While you’re at it, do the rest of his album. Good stuff.

Neale introduced the pastor for the sermon. Two large doors on the side of the stage opened, and out he came driving a golf cart. Fast. The new sermon series was titled “Stuff,” and it deals with possessions. The stage was set up elaborately to go along with the theme.

Pastor Rick White gave a superb message. The message was being broadcast to another church site, and to the “chapel” at People’s Church (where a choir provided music–obviously, the “traditional” service). I’d love to hear the rest of the series, because it’s an important topic (the contemporary church, I contend, is blind to how thoroughly it has bought into materialism). Here are the four titles.

• October 21: Who Owns This Stuff (1 Chronicles 29).
• October 28: How are We to Use Our Stuff? (Luke 16).
• November 4: Overcoming the Fear of Losing Our Stuff (2 Corinthians 9).
• November 11: How the People’s Church Uses Our Stuff.

After the offering, Pastor White directed out attention to the baptistry on the side of the sanctuary. A woman, probably a staff minister, introduced and baptized a white woman and a black woman, both coincidentally named Ashley Nicole. Then Pastor White took her place and baptized a young girl. It was neat. Only the baptizees were in the water; the ministers stood behind the water tank, reaching over to dunk the person. It’s always neat seeing baptisms.

The service ended, and we exited the sanctuary. There had been a “greeting time” early in the service, during which Pam and I shook a few hands and got a few “Welcome, glad to have you, blah blah blah.” But beyond that, nobody in the sanctuary said a word to us, and we made it out to our car without anyone saying a word. Strange, very strange. Maybe it’s intentional strategy; I’m not getting bent out of shape about it, because I realize we got only a small snapshot of what I know is a growing, vibrant church. This is a church that’s doing some real good things. Maybe we just caught them on a bad day.

You can watch the service online. The October 21 service is the one we attended. At least listen to the music; Michael Neale is a gifted worship leader. But then, you should also listen to the message. And check out the set decoration.

We made it home. Finally.

We attended church in Nashville, Tenn., yesterday morning and started back for what should have been a seven-hour trip. A nice, casual Sunday drive, right?

We took I-65 north. About 30 miles from Louisvile, Kent., we hit a major logjam caused by an accident. We were stuck for an hour. Traffic finally got moving. After about 20 minutes, I pulled off at an exit to let Pam drive. But as we headed back onto the highway, things were backed up again. Just beyond the exit another accident had occurred. If I hadn’t pulled off there, we would have been long past before the accident occurred.

This time, we consulted a roadmap and found a suitable detour which eventually reconnected us with I-65. We cruised into southern Indiana. But about 30 minutes from Indianapolis, we hit another logjam, which tied us up for another 30 minutes or so. We took an exit and found a detour. It took us through some towns and was slow driving, but at least we were moving.

So that was traffic jam number 3. Between Anderson and Muncie, we hit number 4. Back to a full stop. Things finally got moving, but another 15 minutes and we were stopped again.

Five traffic jams on the same highway I had taken a month earlier, when I had a conference in Nashville.

So our seven-hour trip ended up being over 11 hours. But we made it, and Molly and Jordi were excited to see us. And we them.

On Sunday, we attended Quest Community Church, a fast-growing, outreach-oriented church we had become familiar with through a media conference. The church started in 1999 and now runs about 2700 people, most of it conversion growth. Pam and I occasionally listened to MP3 sermons by Pete Hise, the pastor. He’s easy to listen to.

They hold four services each weekend, all identical (one on Saturday night). We targeted the 10:22 service (yes, that was the advertised time), which is also broadcast to “V2” (video venue) and live on the web.

The church doesn’t look like a church. More like a converted warehouse, we decided, as we sat in the gravel parking lot. Actually, it was a former indoor sports facility (bowling, indoor soccer, video arcade, all kinds of stuff) which they bought and converted.

The 9 a.m. service was showing on monitors all over the lobby, and even one in the bathroom. As we waited, a man with a namebadge approached us, introduced himself, and struck up a conversation. Very natural. We talked to him for a while, and he told us lots about the church. After he left, after some time elapsed, another fellow came and talked to us. Not just a cursory greeting, but spent major time talking. Both of these greeters were leaders in the church. And they were genuinely passionate about their church, and particulary about all the people they were winning to Christ.

Signs hung around the lobby, advertising the current “Revolution” sermon series; this was the last of six weeks. Thus far, 250 people had come to Christ through this series. Wow.

I was surprised at the sanctuary, located on the upper level. Much smaller than I expected. Maybe 400 movie-style seats, max, arranged in a sideways orientation, maybe 12 rows deep. Huge platform. As we entered (with the 9 a.m. service quickly emptying through another door), a countdown on the screen showed less than four minutes. They move people in and out quickly. You don’t hang around and chat in the sanctuary after services.

The band came out, and the music leader, a woman, invited us all to stand. We sang a song I didn’t recognize; I think it was called “Ignite.” Then she had us sit down. That was the only song we would sing. From then on, it was more like a concert, with the band singing to us. And they were good. They did three more songs, each with a different lead singer. One, I learned later, was a Van Halen song. They did Chris Daughtry’s “I’m Comin’ Home.” And one other–and this one was spectacular. It had a lot of rap influence, but was actual singing. Everyone on stage was jumping and moving. Maybe a Tobymac song, I don’t know. But I’ve never seen anything like it in a church service. It was amazing. I loved it. And so did the crowd.

At our national conference in May, someone, on a comment card, complained about the “gyrating” by the leader of one of the two worship teams we used. The “gyrating” consisted of periodically dropping one foot back and leaning back. This person, had he/she been at Quest on Sunday, would have run screaming from the service, banging fists against her/his head, certain that the devil himself was giving chase.

“I’m Comin’ Home” was actually the last song. Just before it, we heard a testimony. A 30-ish man, bald, tall and lean, sat on a stool with a microphone. I thought he was one of the pastors, at first. But then he began telling his story. A story of being called “fag” and “queer” and worse as a kid, being given “an identity I didn’t want,” but then, starting as a teen, descending into the gay lifestyle. In the church and at school he found no acceptance. But in the gay community, he did find acceptance. He lived that life for a number of years, yet felt the proverbial emptiness. Through a variety of circumstances, he ended up at Quest 14 months ago and gave Jesus control of his life. It was a powerful testimony.

Pete Hise, the founding pastor, is a superb communicator. Energetic. Humorous. Creative. He used a bunch of different props, some of which people brought onstage, behind him, as he spoke (which means he was following a script closely, and things had been planned out very well). Very well done. He led up to a presentation of the gospel, but in a way designed specifically for people in 2007.

For response, he had people lower their heads and asked people to raise a hand if they wanted to give their lives to Christ. About 20 people in that service did. He invited them to a certain room immediately after the service, so he could talk to them and serve them communion.

How cool is that? People accept Christ, and right away you serve them communion. I’d never heard of that.

It was an enormous thrill to take part in that service. An enormous thrill to see a church being the church, hitting on all cylinders.