This weekend was my last chance to skip church before we start on a project that will have me tied-up until Christmas, so I packed up the family and drove down to Colorado Springs to visit New Life Church.
If you’re not familiar with New Life, here’s a little sample of their worship:
Now, you have to understand that I’m something of a cynic. When I look at this video, I see a polished and rehearsed moment, well-planned and captured for the benefit of selling records. I fully expected that the actual experience would be something less.
I was wrong…
New Life is a worshiping church. The same sense of excitement and anticipation that is evident in the video was there on Sunday morning too. I was pleasantly surprised by the authentic worship experience. We were able to easily follow and worship with them, because the experience is also well-led. Even when the leader said, “We want to teach you a new song…” the congregation responded eagerly.
Also surprising was the broad generational and ethnic diversity.
We took our 4-year-old daughter to children’s church, which was a process that took about 15 minutes. The facility is outrageously cool and the teachers were great. When we picked her up after service, she begged to come back again.
We weren’t pounced on by ushers or greeters, but every time we got that “caught in the headlights” look, someone offered to help us find what we were looking for… and not necessarily someone wearing a nametag. On the stairs in the children’s building, my wife made a comment about being glad we left plenty of time to find the classroom and the lady in front of us asked if it was our first visit, then escorted us to the right room.
There were just enough missteps to remind us that these were real people, serving and worshiping and leading…
So regardless of what you think about “mega-churches,” New Life is a testimony of what resources and leadership can do to expand the Kingdom of God…
My daughter woke us up on Monday and asked to go to “perfect church” again… And while I know that there’s no such thing as a perfect church, visiting at New Life was a great experience.
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Purchase “Counting On God” CD by New Life Worship from the WOP store.
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