Church Search 5: Cold Water Church

Earlier this week, after my Church Search 3 posting, I received an message on the Facebook from Chris, the pastor of a new church plant in Avondale. You see, I had joined an emerging church group on the Facebook simply in order to post to the wall that we were looking for a church and did anyone know of a group meeting in our part of Phoenix. It seems Chris had posted a similar message about a month earlier. Needless to say, when he saw my post, he must have researched me a bit because his message was very thoughtful:

"We are a small new church plant that has fairly traditional services in a school. By traditional, I mean we meet sunday mornings, we sing songs and someone, usually myself, preaches. My own roots are charismatic and non denominational but certainly there are folks from diverse backgrounds with in our group. I might label myself "post-charismatic" or even confess being a "recovering pharisee", meaing I know I haven't figured it out and I have some of the same frustrations you blogged about. Feel free to check out these websites, maybe listen to a sermon, and find out if we'd be worth checking out. We may be too far. I do want you to know none of our folks wear guns to church and we do not and will not hand out political propaganda. Hope you find a community where you can grow in faith, hope, and love."

After we read that, we both thought "Yeah, we should try this place." After all, we really have nothing to lose at this point. Well, Avondale is not so far by Phoenix standards (30 minutes from us) so we planned our Sunday morning out, set our alarm clocks and braced ourselves.

Cold Water doesn't have it's own building. They meet in a school. This was not a problem for us, though Christian was surprised. "You can have churches meet in schools? Isn't that against the separation of church and state?" I wasn't surprised as there is a very cool church in Santa Barbara that also meets in a school.

When we got there, there was a banner at the outside gate, and another showing us which part of the parking lot to use (the entrance to the multi-purpose room is in the back of the school, so it makes sense to park in the back). As soon as we entered the building there were kids of a variety of ages running around and playing. This caused us to smile.

In the middle of the room were several rows of folding chairs. At the front on the lefthand side there was a keyboard, several mics on stands, and a guitar in a stand. In the center was a cross-shaped podium with mic. On the right were tables with a lap-top, sound board, and a digital projector (this pointed towards a section of white wall).

Almost as soon as we walked in, we were greeted by Chris. A second or so later another church member came up to talk to us, and within a few minutes, everyone had said hello and asked us a few questions. Everyone was somewhere in their mid-twenties, at the max early thirties. Most of the members were new transplants from California, newly married, and/or had small children. Also a number of children from the neighborhood had come (they were probably between 8 and 12 years old). There was a table to the side with water, juice, fruit, and coffee cake. Church started late (which we were informed is normal) and began with singing a number of songs. They were mostly songs I knew, and it was clear the music was being led by the person who played a musical instrument (we're talking a small church plant that is still trying to figure out its groove. There's potential, and room for improvement). In between songs there were some prayers.

Then Chris got up and it felt as if he was speaking directly to us (though it may have been that he was just inspired by some of the thoughts from my blog, I'm not sure). The passage was from Numbers where Miriam and Aaron are criticizing Moses for taking a Cushite wife. He talked about how this was not a passage to highlight that God is going to punish us because he likes punishing us, or that we should be punished, but rather that suffering happens so we can move forward, not backward. Rather it serves a reminder. He was careful to mention that women are important and share leadership through out the Bible (I really think he must have read that other post) and ironically this is the one passage where Miriam has screwed up (but he noted, she did a number of other GOOD things through out the Exodus story). He also emphasized the entire encampment waits for her to get done with her time-out (7 days of quarantine) and they leave once she comes back.

He went on to say that criticism should happen in a time and a place where it is necessary and helpful. There are several questions we should ask ourselves when we are contemplating criticism. For example, is it hurtful or helpful? What would God have us do? Are you criticizing the person or the person's actions? (grin, Christian couldn't remember but suggests "Write things down" "Ask someone else if this is a good idea" "Flip a coin"). Mostly, the point was to have filters on what you say and how you say things, i.e. pragmatism.

When Chris was talking he had his security blanket (some papers with notes at least, if not a full manuscript on the podium) but mostly he walked around and talked very personably and realistically about the passage, tied it to Jesus' teachings, and to life in the 21st century.

After church we talked with members, helped them put away chairs etc, and were then invited to join their lunch group (Dad, sound familiar?). We went to Red Robin as there's really only chain restaurants in the area and at least one of our number was veggie (I think) and apparently there are veggie options at Red Robin (I could be inventing this because it was discussed in non-specific terms, but implied).

At lunch we talked about all kinds of things. Christian discovered a number of the guys at the church have LAN parties regularly (at least once a quarter). They had all kinds of "nerd" things to talk about. Meanwhile I chatted with the women about callings, jobs, kids etc. From the middle of our time together towards the end we talked about wine, food, and of course, a whole lot of church. It was pretty clear from all the conversation that everyone was accepting and interested in diversity of opinions, and that we were safely in an emerging kind of setting.

On the car ride home Christian and I talked about our impressions. Something came up that I hadn't really thought about previously, but is sort of a no-brainer. You need to feel like you have potential friends at a church. Why would you join a church where you wouldn't really fit in or wouldn't make connections? At Cold Water, we felt like we could be friends with everyone. It was a positive welcoming environment. There are definite kinks to work out, as would be expected with a new church plant, but there's an overwhelming amount of potential, and as Christian and I discussed on our car ride, we felt like we could bring our non-church friends to Cold Water (and they'd like it). Plus we're interested to see where it will go in a year's time. We'd both feel comfortable returning, and we both feel like we could contribute to the overall growth and health of the church community.

So what does Cold Water get on our wine spectrum? It's not the wedding at Cana, but it's probably an 8 right now, and with a little nurturing and caring, it could very well be a Beckman Purisima in a few years.