I was on vacation this week, so I took the opportunity to visit Spring Mount Mennonite Church, which is where my friend Chris Pastors.  When I’m on vacation, but at home, I’ll often just worship at Central Baptist anyway – it’s the worshiping community I’m part of, after all.  Frequently, however, I like to go visiting other congregations to see what people are up to – too often I come away wondering, “That was an hour of my life I will never get back.”  Today, however, was not one of those times.

I arrived at Spring Mount Mennonite about a half-hour before the worship, just as people were beginning to arrive at the building in earnest.  In my last several visits to other churches I’ve had a hard time making eye contact with people to say hello, which is depressing, Spring Mount was different.  As I left my car another couple was walking towards the Church and very graciously introduced themselves to me and walked with me into the building.  As we entered the building they introduced me to a couple of other people in the foyer who all smiled and said hello.  Now, churches can often force themselves on to visitors and end up smothering them.  I didn’t get that impression from any of the people who greeted me at Spring Mount – it was a genuine welcome of the like I’ve only rarely recieved.

The worship was hugely informal, and yet not overbearingly so.  A lot of “not church as usual” places wear informal worship like a bad outfit, Spring Mount just seemed to be comfortable being in each other’s presence and didn’t see any need for “garnish.”  This isn’t to say they didn’t have any liturgical elements – there was, for example, a nice response to prayer in the prayer time that bordered on a chant.  Singing was heart-felt, and mostly contemporary, they probably could use some sound pick-ups for the guitars – but they folks played like they cared which was nice. Two kind women in front of me turned after worship and complimented me on my singing, which made me feel awkward (both because I have difficulty accepting comments, and because was actually trying not to draw attention to myself and I felt like I failed in that department).  An older gentleman helped the congregation progress through the liturgy (such as it was) – there was something about the way in which he humbly (and warmly) led the congregation that touched me.  After worship I remarked to Chris that it seemed me that this gentleman had a “good heart.”  It was nice to have it confirmed when Chris replied, “Wes, he’s a light to this community.”

Spring Mount does their education hour after worship, and from what I could tel nearly everyone stayed  for at least part of the hour.  The largest class seemed to be the sermon response class, which was run by a member who jotted down some thoughts during the sermon and led the class in discussion.  Chris was present in the class, and spoke a couple of times, but the ethic of the class isn’t that people level him with questions about the sermon.  Rather, people gave responses from their own hearts and ping-ponged the discussion around.  This was a neat approach, and not one that I think would work at Central just yet.  First, I’m not as disciplined as Chris in keeping my mouth shut (in fact, I felt like I talked too much in this one class I attended!).  Second, I’m not sure Central’s got a strong enough ethic in the type of discussion that the folks at Spring Mount were having.  You could tell that the folks in the class trusted each other enough to speak from their hearts without needing to scrore points.  It’s too rare a trait in churches and Central’s still growing into this.  The bigger problem, however, is that I’d just talk too much.

As I departed Spring Mount I called my wife and said, “I’m actually grateful for the opportunity to have been with these people.”  That’s about the best compliment I can give them.