Church visits

Searching: I’ve been looking for a church that projects relevance to my stage of Christian development. In this quest I have visited and worshiped with many streams of religious persuasion. Assuming this may be an issue for many in the Anchorage area, I offer in this blog brief accounts of my visits. The criteria I use in evaluating my visits are:
• Did the church project friendliness and warmth?
• Did I truly feel welcomed?
• Did I relate to the main teaching and was it delivered effectively?
• Did music merely entertain or did it deepen the worship experience?

Map to churches I have visited.
My email: churchvisits@gmail.com


Contributors

Chris Thompson

Chris Thompson

Chris Thompson, an amateur biblical scholar and student of religions, is a member of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and Society for Biblical Literature (SBL). He enjoys AAR/SBL where he studies, first hand, with worldwide religious scholars. A management consultant, skilled in all aspects of 360-degree feedback programs and human resource management systems, he practices these skills as Workforce Consulting. He lives in Anchorage.

ON THE WEB

Google map with visited churches

As I visit churches, I'll post their locations on this map.

Archive

Shocking Beliefs of the Unchurched - 11/30/2008 12:01 pm

Great Land Christian Church - What a Great Experience! - 11/20/2008 10:00 pm

Crosspoint: Room for Improvement - 11/16/2008 4:17 pm

A Church Visit Reader Shares Their "Looking for A Church" Story - 11/10/2008 10:02 pm

St. John Orthodox - A Spiritual Treat - 10/31/2008 3:54 pm

Guest Blog - Chris Walker's "10 Tips for Greeters" - 10/23/2008 12:57 pm

Christian Courage, It's Still Alive! - 10/12/2008 2:58 pm

More Changes Coming to ChangePoint - 10/3/2008 7:06 am

Guest Blog -Top 10 Church Website Design Mistakes of 2007 - 9/28/2008 6:01 pm

Muldoon Assembly: Friendly, Programmed - 9/19/2008 11:12 pm

Why I've Run From Churches - Guest Blog - 9/16/2008 6:58 pm

Christian Church of Anchorage...An Invitation, Refusal, and Later Visit - 9/3/2008 1:38 pm

Podcasts/Godcasts...The Darker Side Pt. 2 - 8/30/2008 12:33 pm

Christ Community Church…A Somewhat Closed Experience - 8/21/2008 9:55 am

Can a Podcast be a Godcast? Part 1 - 8/16/2008 7:47 pm

Youth Lead Sunday Evening Service…A Pleasant First! - 8/12/2008 4:09 pm

Anchorage City Church…Charismatically Quiet - 8/4/2008 11:02 pm

But what about theology? - 7/30/2008 1:42 pm

Holy Family Cathedral: Warm, Friendly and Catholic - 7/26/2008 9:50 pm

Foreign missionaries to the U.S. or even Alaska, can it be true? - 7/22/2008 2:46 pm

First church I've visited not using musical instruments, but they can sing! - 7/16/2008 10:39 am

Protestantism Declining, Catholicism Steady, and No Religious Affiliation Rising According to Pew Forum Report - 7/10/2008 4:33 pm

full archive »

Protestantism Declining, Catholicism Steady, and No Religious Affiliation Rising According to Pew Forum Report

Posted by Chris Thompson

Posted: July 10, 2008 - 4:33 pm

Protestantism is on the decline, according to the Pew Forum's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey released in February 2008. In fact, since the 1970's, Protestant numbers have dramatically slipped from 65% to 51% of total U.S. Population as measured in 2006 by General Social Surveys.

Challenges for Catholics
Catholics, according to the Pew study, are losing members out the back door, but holding steady overall due to the influx of Catholic immigrants, especially from Latin America. The data further show 10% of American's are now reported as being former Catholics.

Those expressing no religious affiliation have tripled from the 1970's low of around 5% to over 15% of the U.S. population.

Organized Religions Taking Hit
According to a New York Times article, earlier this year, Americans Change Faiths at Rising Rate, Report Finds, by Neela Banerjee, many Americans are leaving organized religion. According to Professor Steven Prothero, quoted in the article, the winners in this shift are evangelical churches who are leading the move to more personal religion. The losers being impersonal religions.

In this blog I've previously observed, via my church visits, challenges various Anchorage area churches are having. It is easy to observe some of the challenges these religious trends create merely by visiting various area churches.

Wait, There's Hope (coming post)
In a future blog post, I'll further discuss how some progressive mainline Protestant churches, and upstart evangelicals have discovered a solution to this challenging dilemma. Bolded material in this blog represents, for the most part, clickable links to the source material. I urge blog readers to take a personal at these materials to form your own opinions.


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  1     July 11, 2008 - 3:34pm | akvalleygirl74

Interesting,

thank you for the info. As a Catholic I find the statistics interesting as well as sad. It shows the dumbing down of the CCD programs that emphasize cozy lovey-dovey feelings instead of core Catholic values and the doctrines and WHY we believe them have created 10% of the US population who is clueless as to the miracle happening on the alter. :(

In our own church, I am continually impressed by the amount of young families that pack the pews. We have a newer church but I have to get there fairly early to get the spot we want, and believe it or not, it's NOT in the back row! LOL It's actually just a couple of rows from the front so my young children can see Father and the choir.

To attend a church based on touchy-feely reasons instead of pursuing a church that professes what you believe to be Truth in it's purest form seems like it would lead to a surfacy, shallow belief system. People are people, we'll always fall short of the Glory of God, but God himself is who we are pursuing to spend eternity with. The short amount of time attending one Sunday service gives you just the outer layer....getting involved, signing up for different ministries, and getting to know people by spending real time with them is how you create relationships that matter. But again, none of those is nearly as important, IMO, as attending a church that you believe possesses true doctrine and teachings.

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  July 16, 2008 - 11:55am | stainedglass

Catholic Church Visit Review Coming Up

I visited Holy Family last weekend and will be posting that visit soon. The Catholics have not been intentionally ignored. I'm trying to work my way through various denominations.

Some characterize my visit criteria as surface or "touchy feely". In reality I understand the transforming power of God and what it does to people's lives. The millions connecting to Christianity in the "global south", for the most part without formal evangelizing, bear testimony to the power of God. Their smiles and reaching out are awesome. There is so much true love there. And...these peoples are now sending missionaries to Europe and the U.S.A. Lots of them. Must be something there. ct

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  July 17, 2008 - 8:44am | akvalleygirl74

I guess I come to that

I guess I come to that conclusion based on my and my husband's own spiritual journey. It's only through spending time at our particular church and with fellow church members through ministry that we have deepened our own faith and reached out to others. If we'd have based our faith system and church of choice on even the first year of attendance as passive observers we'd have converted by now! ;) (But me being a cradle catholic kept that from happening, which got us to where we are now.)

The more time I spend reaching out to others, through the Family Promise program in our area that helps homeless families or the Food Bank that our church helps nearby protestant churches keep stocked and staffed, I find myself spiritually growing by realizing the gifts I offer to fellow humankind. That in turn has encouraged me to delve into my faith and my Bible, as well as my Catechism so I can more fully understand that which I profess to believe. It's a process that has taken years....and it's given me a peacefulless of heart that I wish everyone could experience.

So when you are done searching for the church that makes you feel most at home, I hope you will immerse yourself in your new "church family" and help enrich the community through ministry and service...the need is great, and God calls us to help those that are most needy.

Many blessings,
Jennifer

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  July 24, 2008 - 7:07am | stainedglass

Your Particular Church?

Would you mind sharing the name of your church or email me at churchvisits@gmail.com?
Thank you!

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  July 24, 2008 - 3:26pm | akvalleygirl74

Sure!

You have an email. :)

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  July 14, 2008 - 1:57pm | bender_23

Heh!

'and believe it or not, it's NOT in the back row!'

Hey, thanks for leaving the back row open for me. :) I once asked my Dad why we sat near the back of the church one Sunday and he said it was so we could entertain (by making faces at so they'd giggle) all the little kids in front of us. Heh!

'but God himself is who we are pursuing to spend eternity with.'

I think that's dead on. And I also agree that becoming a part of your parish community is very important.

I'll add that I think some people also forget to find God outside a church environment and I wish that some churches would focus a bit more on that. My family never missed church unless we had the flu or there was a really bad blizzard- we'd even go during planting seaon and harvest (my parent's were farmers), but my Dad also told me once that he feels closest to God when he's working our land or just outside in nature.

I think God can be found in many places, the important part is to be looking for Him and not just expecting Him to come along and find you (which is, in my opinion, the one of the most important points akvalleygirl was making).

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  July 15, 2008 - 10:34am | akvalleygirl74

Thanks for the response! :)

I agree with you about finding God outside of church as well. I think you'd really enjoy the Theology on Tap meet-ups in Anchorage. They are taking the summer off, but we attended several over the winter and really enjoyed them. In Anch they are at the Snowgoose restaurant and out here they're at Hacienda. Beer and appetizers are combined with great talks and socializing with other Catholics in our age bracket. :) You'd really like it, I think! The Archdiocese website should have updated events as fall approaches, FYI.

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  July 16, 2008 - 9:13am | bender_23

Oh, cool!

That's awesome! A buddy of mine used to go to something like that in DC. I'll definitely be keeping an eye open for that- that's right up my alley. Thanks so much for the heads up!

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