Looking for churches is an interesting experience. Over the years I’ve had opportunity to look for churches many times and I’ve often run into some weird things.
I’m curious what’s the weirdest thing you’ve run into visiting a new church?
My answers in the thread below and in no particular order.
1) Church began singing a song that went like: “We are the church of [city name].”
Not the weirdest on its own, but it did seem like (in context) they believed they were the only Christians in that city (one of the biggest in its state).
2) “For those of you just joining us we’re doing our second week of study on the movie Juno.”
So many questions. Why are we studying a secular movie in church? Why did you need two weeks to do this? Why aren’t we even looking at the Bible?
3) “God doesn’t have emotions, He is pure logic. The devil is full of emotions. Be like God.”
Ok pastor, what about all the passages that declare God loves (John 3:16), has compassion (Psalm 135:14), is grieved (Genesis 6:6), has anger (Psalm 7:11), jealousy (Exodus 20:5), joy (Isaiah 62:5), etc? The Bible is clear that God has emotions. This line of thinking will make emotional people feel guilty over traits they may share with God Himself!
4) Height of the pandemic and the preacher talks about why we wear masks being to love on those who are immunocompromised (great point!). Immediately the guy sitting in front of us grunts and pulls his mask down.
This list is far from exhaustive. Some of the weird things are so common most people fail to notice (like the American Flag being prominently displayed, the national anthem being sung, or the preacher taking pot shots at theologians/philosophers whose views they clearly don’t know.)
The weird quirks we see in churches are as many as there are people. None of it has dampened my faith in God, but it does make me wonder how some of these people became pastors.
6) Checked out a local church a few months ago where the preacher talked about all the bad cultural movements throughout the time he's been alive. Some of them I've never heard about, but then he got to more current movements like CRT and the woke agenda.
He made the claim that all of these movements had one thing in common: the goal was sex.
My guy, you don't know what you're talking about. Do some research before you plunge down this road. You're right that the hippie movement was about that, but I'm pretty sure every other movement was not, and I know for certain that you haven't read any source material on CRT and the Woke movement.
@jfslicer My wife and I are weirdos. We’ve never church “shopped.” We knew when arriving to a town which church would likely share our doctrinal commitments. Anything we found we didn’t like at a particular church we believed was our calling to enter into.
Friends of ours still can’t believe that was our approach. 😂
@jfslicer That’s fair. 😂
I’ll be praying for you all to find a landing place for community.
@jfslicer @Aslanmane I can do you one better. I've been in a service where they did the pledge of allegiance to the American flag in the middle of the service.
Also, Zondervan hymnals include the national anthem, America the Beautiful, and others.
(To be clear, I am very much not a fan of this kind of nationalism in churches.)
I get that not everyone that loves their country worships it. Just pointing out that many have fallen because they think they can love both equally.
@dominicgrant @vwbusguy @Aslanmane Do you know if other churches in the UK also require it to be sung outside of the worship service like that?
Do you think congregants think of it the same way?
Genuinely curious.
James Fields 
Daniel Rose
Richard
Scott Williams 🐧
The Disreputable Bede
Dominic Grant
dansully