Pastor John Ruhlman Life Worship 9:00am Sunday
*Life Worship 10:45am Sunday*
*services offer nursery, children's & youth ministry
The following review is based on a Sunday Morning service that I attended on 09.09.07 at 10:45 AM.
Rating:
Worship 2/5
Friendliness 4.5/5
Sermon 3/5
Theological Content 2/5
Evangelistic 4/5
Facility 3/5 (moving soon)
Additional Comments:
As I walked from the parking lot I was greeted by a friendly woman who introduced herself as Jane. Jane asked me if this was my first visit, gave me a name tag and offered to walk me to the sanctuary. Jane is definitely the type of greeter that every church should have.
As I entered the auditorium (Life Church is presently meeting at Gardner Middle School) I noticed that there was a "Cold Play" song playing through the PA system. I like Cold Play but when I sit down in church to worship God I tend to prefer something that I can't get in the world, something that is going to direct my thoughts toward Jesus.
WORSHIP
As I was reading through the bulletin the band began to play and I have to tell you that the music was so loud I actually was startled in my chair. The music was fast and the genre was Rock. In fact, the worship leader said something to the effect, "we are a rockin' church!" The graphics on the projection screen definitely fit well with the music. It was a combination of fast moving "screen saver" type images. When I sang I noticed that I couldn't even hear my own voice.
SERMON
The pastor's sermon was entitled "Why Build?" and it was based on Matthew 16:13-19. There were several things that I appreciated about the sermon. I appreciated that the pastor emphasized the deity of Christ, salvation by grace through faith, that he gave a very clear and basic explanation of justification without using the terminology and he mentioned that people can come to Life Church and not worry about being judged. The only criticism that I have concerning the sermon is when the pastor was making the point that Life Church is committed to being an "Unshockable Church" and he stated that "paedophilia is the sinful equivalence of cheating on your taxes". I think I know what he meant. I think what he was trying to say was that we are all sinners and any sin will be enough to send someone to hell. The problem is that his lack of precision on this topic can lead to great confusion among Christians and unbelievers who were present. A simple overview of the law of God in the OT would demonstrate that there are different degrees of sin.
It seems that Life Church has been heavily influenced by the seeker sensitive movement that was popularized by Rick Warren in the late 80's. The service seems to be geared more toward evangelism than worship and edification.
If you like loud music and are a new Christian or you are thinking about starting to attend church this may be the church for you.
Below is an excerpt from the Life Church website:
"This summer Life Church is going to Rock! That's right we're Rockin' Through the Summer with a new teaching series.Music has always been a huge part of culture and in the past decades, Rock & Roll has been king. There have been so many great songs, songs that you know as soon as the first power chord hits, a chorus that just runs through your head all week. We are going to look at some of these powerful songs by artists like, U2, The Rolling Stones, Foreigner, John Mayer, and others - and we'll see how they launch us into deep spiritual talks that bring up very Biblical truths.Don't miss a week at Life Church this Summer as we ROCK!"
