I got a Saturday night call last weekend to come back to Long Beach to lead music because Ron was sick. But this Sunday, because I was spending the night at my brother’s place, I’m continuing my road-trip and I thought I’d spend my Sunday morning at Calvary Chapel Mission Viejo. Alas, Pastor Neil was sick this weekend, so the message was given by one of the associate pastors, Pastor Mark. So I’m “on the road,” looking for a new church home, and while I’m not even considering whether to make Calvary Mission Viejo my new home, because it’s so far away, I think it’s good to step outside the little church box I’ve been in for the past 13-months.

Matt made a crack this morning when I left that I was going to be hanging out with the right-wing conservatives, and I know that that wasn’t much different from the Vineyard-ites that I’ve been hanging with for the past four years. Then, when I’ve talked to a fellow Vineyard-ite about my concerns, the subject of worship music always comes up. I don’t know. This morning at the Mission Viejo Calvary brought it back to that. They had a pretty good worship band and maybe I’m being an elitist worship snob but there seems to be an unbalanced mix in music between songs that are about how great God is and feel like they’re meant to be sung to those who don’t know how great God is and intimate songs meant to be sung to this awesome God. In fact, the worship leader almost got a little choked up when he was relating a story about a Chinese Christian who had suffered for his faith, and I could tell that the other worship team members were a bit thrown off by this. This made me wonder if I was suffering from some kind of niche Christianity requirement, like how a Panda can only survive only on bamboo.

Alas, as much as I love the idea of being a part of a growing fellowship with a whole directory of persons heading up more than a dozen ministries, I’m thinking that I’m going to have to just go with the place where worship is more than a warm-up act for the pastor’s message. Okay, now I’m being snobby (BTW, the associate pastor at Calvary had a great message this morning). Oh yeah, as I’m writing this I’m reminded, when I visited the church website, I had a heck of a time finding out when the Sunday morning services were. I checked on a Saturday, so the page told me when their Saturday services were, but it wasn’t originally clear where I was supposed to click to find out when the Sunday services were. Ack. Onward and upward…. JBB