We chose to worship with Dubbo Baptist Church today (a note for my international readers – I’m not sure Australian Baptists are the same as the US Baptists although I’m not all that sure how it all works).

It’s hard when you are in a strange town to know the best place to go for worship, particularly with young children.

I was quite surprised at how many of the church people assumed we were “new” rather than “visiting”.  I had assumed that given this town has a large tourism trade, that “visitors” would be quite common.  Perhaps not.

I was really looking forward to experiencing worship in another church.  Not because I have any desire to leave our own church family, but because I think it helps to spread the wings a bit and experience things the way others do them.

For instance, this morning this particular church had their children do a presentation on what they had been learning in their children’s program.  It was lovely and something we don’t tend to do in our church.  Not that we don’t involve our children in a lot of ways but it could be a good extension for our children to actually share a little of what they’ve done from time to time.

It’s also good to attend worship from a visitors point of view to really understand how much of a “culture” our worship services can be.  We found the people very welcoming when we arrived.  However, when it came time for the kids to leave the service for their own program, not 1 person offered for our children to go.  They also mentioned some activity books for kids and for a while, I didn’t think anyone was going to offer our children one of those either.  Eventually a lady did think to bring them a book and some pencils.  Just little things but so important when it comes to caring for those not familiar with the regular run of things.

We did really enjoy our time with them and the sermon was interesting and challenging.  I hadn’t ever really clicked that the church in Corinth was having trouble with people teaching that speaking in tongues was a sign of spirituality.  Isn’t it interesting how the church today can easily make the same mistakes that have occurred throughout history.  I have no problem with people operating in the gift of tongues but I DO take issue with people saying you’re not a Christian if you don’t speak in tongues. 

I also really enjoyed the way the preacher worked his way through the bible passage he was preaching from.  Sometimes you’ll listen to a sermon and wonder if they’re going to refer to the Scripture at all.

All in all, we had a lovely experience for our first “church on the road”.  The kids sat well and I was quite happy for them to be in for the entire service (I don’t think it hurts kids to learn to sit and listen).  We didn’t hang around to chat afterward though as the kids were getting pretty hungry by then.