Apostolic Church of Barberton

Really, I shouldn't be typing this. My grass is oh-so very tall right now and my bushes are in need of a serious trim. But hey, who am I to put off the Lord's work for yard work? (this is the Lord's work, right?).

This Sunday I found myself at the Apostolic Church of Barberton, located in, as the name might suggest, Barberton. They meet in a large new building that I think is only 5 or 10 years old. It's big and spacious but not The Chapel big and crazy.

Most of us know the Apostolics by their women: they're the ones you always see with the really long hair and the jean skirts or dresses. The men, just your regular dude in a suit. But as I've heard and seen, the more conservative dress they wear, the crazier they are in worship.

Worship started off great, then they kept going, until they smashed great into the ground and kicked it. The band was awesome and singers on stage had great voices. They sang about 4 or 5 songs (long versions, might I add) and then a guy came up and did announcements. Okay, not bad. But wait! Now more people went up and formed a choir and sang probably about 3 or 4 more songs. Oh snap. (Side note: Your Rev has a bum knee right now and it was starting to ache because, yes, we were standing the whole time!).

However, most of the people there were very into it (though I saw a few take a seat and a couple even wander around!). People were raising their hands, jumping, and shouting, really getting into it. It was just on the line of creepy "getting into it" but they held it in.

In the middle of this worship time, they had an altar call, that is, if you were sick or struggling, you could come down front and have the leaders pray over you. While this can be a little weird (and sometimes, it can be very very weird) they did it pretty well. I'd say about 15 or so people made their way down and they prayed.

The preacher, from what they said, was a guest speaker. And really, he wasn't really a preacher in the sense of what I think of as one but more a rally leader. A church cheer leader, if you will. I say that because he didn't really teach anythinig new, no bible lesson, no new insights. He spoke very loudly and fervently about God's mercy and how great it is. He read from 1 Timothy 1:14-16, but he didn't really go too much from there.

His delivery was something that I had heard mocked on TV and the like but had never actually seen done in person. An example: AND WHEN JESUS-UH, COMES BACK-UH, I HOPE YOU'RE ALL READY-UH, FOR THE LORD-UH! . . . yeah, just like that. A lot of style and not much content.

Also, while he was preaching, there were these guys who I think were elders, sitting in these large throne-like chairs behind him. If the speaker was the cheerleader, then these guys were the coaches and/or moms and dads in the stands. They would yell out encouragement to him as he spoke (Preach it! Sing it! We want a pitcher not a belly itcher!. . . maybe not that last one). Other than that, I'm not quite sure what their purpose was. Maybe if you're the biggest giver from the week before you get to sit there, I don't know.

After his pep talk, he made yet another alter call. Now this one was slightly awkward. He said that if you were a Christian or were someone who had a problem, then you should come on down. Um, who doesn't that apply to? Yes, I am a Christian and trust me, I have plenty of problems, but I sure as heck didn't go down. Talk about standing out - it was me and about 12 other people that didn't go down out of a crowd of 300 or so.

This part of the ceremonies went on for about 20 minutes. Some people were singing but most were down front praying and waving their hands, while others were just milling about. I felt compelled to leave but I stuck it out for the sake of the experience.

After this, the leader guy prayed and, done. Yeah, kind of an anti-climatic end. However, I was ready to split.

I did get to make some small talk with a couple of friendly people but really, I wasn't too impressed. At the beginning, I thought this was going to another House of the Lord, with all the excitement and enthusiam. But it just ended up seeming weird and pointless. The sermon that had no point and the never-ending worship just kind of killed it.

Oh well.

So in the next couple of weeks, I think I want to hit up a really small church. You know, that church you see tucked in a neighborhood and you think, who the heck goes there? What happens in there? Yeah, I want to find out. It might be creepy but what the heck, it'll be fun.

Until next week! Same Rev time-UH! Same Rev channel-UH!