As you have all probably noticed,
it has been quite some time since I posted a blog about a church visit. I
settled down at First Baptist Dallas, and I am now partnering with Hickory Tree
Baptist Church. However, over the past couple weeks I have been visiting my
family in Houston over the holidays. This past Sunday, I attended Wilcrest
Baptist Church with my brother and his family.
To avoid burying the lead, of all
the churches I have written about, this one is “The One.” Obviously this is
just a preliminary assessment, but this is the church I would be most interested
in going under the hood and seeing what they do to bring in people, to build
the people who are there, and to send out people.
The first thing that struck me is
the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural dynamic of the church. In fact, the church
describes itself as a multi-ethnic congregation that trains missionaries. Back
in the late 80’s and early 90s, the church was primarily white and was
dwindling as the neighboring communities underwent white-flight. But they
called Rodney Woo (Ph.D., Southwestern Seminary) as pastor, and he led the
church through a transformation: the church more than doubled in size, and now
represents more than 40 nations. (Woo wrote a book on the experience, titled The Color of Church.)
The flavor of the worship was quite
varied: the first song had a Jamaican jive, the next had a sort of Zydeco feel,
the next had a contemporary praise-and-worship sound. Our pew was the only
non-integrated pew in the building since my family alone took up the entire
row. There were songs I didn’t know, and there were songs I did. But over-all,
it felt different. It is hard to
describe that exactly: it didn’t feel like anyone was being pushed into a mold.
It seemed like there was a specific attempt at having something for everyone.
While I really appreciated the
multi-cultural character of the church, the deal was sealed when their pastor (Jonathan
Williams) began to preach. He was preaching over the Great Commission, He asked
all the typical, general questions (what are the reasons to participate in missions)
at the beginning of his sermon, but when he moved to the text, his sermon was
structured according to the participles—love at first sight. This is the first
of my blogged-about-church-visits where the sermon was structured around the
syntax and structure of the Greek.
No church is perfect (and if it
were, it wouldn’t be after I joined!), but this church definitely caught my
attention. If you are ever in Houston, I would highly suggest visiting this
church.
