On a beautiful Sunday morning in Dallas, my oldest son, Stephen, and I decided to head to the Dallas Northway\u00a0Campus of The Village Church for the 11:15 a.m. Worship Service. Actually, Stephen didn’t really have any choice in the matter. Truth be told, I didn’t really have a choice either.<\/p>\n
While I might be an inconsistent Calvinist in my practice, I know and believe in God’s total sovereignty. When I share with the congregation at Bethel Alamogordo on Sundays, “No one is here by accident or coincidence. God has brought each of us here today with purpose and reason, to hear from Him and to leave changed because we have been in His presence,”<\/em> I truly believe that. By the way, I don’t think you have to consider yourself a Reformed Southern Baptist to be able to affirm God’s sovereignty \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n God gives us freedom to choose, but He often will use our\u00a0own background, experiences, and circumstances to help us make our decisions. If Cornerstone Church, where Pastor Dwight McKissic\u00a0serves as Pastor,\u00a0would have had a later service, we might have chosen to worship with those brothers and sisters.\u00a0 If FBC\u00a0Farmersville, where Bart Barber serves as Pastor, was not about an hour’s drive north of our hotel,\u00a0I seriously considered worshipping with those fine folks.\u00a0 And, if\u00a0I would have told C.E. Buttrill, who served on the Pastor Search Committee that God used to bring me to Bethel Baptist Church in Alamogordo, NM, that I was in the Dallas area (C.E. relocated to Dallas a few years ago), I would have probably ended up worshipping with him\u00a0at Prestonwood Baptist Church and finding some great BBQ in the process (more on that later).\u00a0 But, The Village is where God wanted Stephen and me\u00a0on Sunday, February 19, 2012!<\/p>\n On The Village’s website, worshippers were encouraged to arrive 30 minutes early. Stephen and I arrived about 40 minutes early, just as the 9:00 a.m. service ended.\u00a0 With so many vehicles, The Village has staff to assist in parking.\u00a0 That was great.\u00a0 We found a spot close to the front.\u00a0 When we walked into the main entrance, we were greeted warmly\u00a0by two ladies holding the doors open.<\/p>\n I quickly noticed that I was overdressed.\u00a0I was wearing khaki’s and a button-down shirt, but I could have just as easily worn jeans, tennis shoes, and a hoodie.\u00a0 Most of the folks were dressed like my son.\u00a0 He fit right in as far as his clothing was concerned, although he stood out because he was one of the only minors in the service. I stood out, not because\u00a0I was overdressed, but \u00a0because I was old!<\/p>\n The overwhelming number of people must have\u00a0been in their twenties and thirties.\u00a0Those my age\u00a0— 45 — and older were definitely in\u00a0a\u00a0distinct minority.\u00a0 Nothing wrong with that and, in fact, it is certainly a blessing to see so many younger people at church on the Lord’s Day!\u00a0 That is the power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the faithfulness of the\u00a0covenant community of The Village Church.<\/p>\n One of the reasons that I wanted to worship at\u00a0The Village Church was to\u00a0hear God’s Word proclaimed by\u00a0Matt Chandler, the Lead Pastor.\u00a0 I didn’t know whether he would be preaching live in-person or live via streaming video, but either way, I was excited to hear what God was going to say through Matt.\u00a0 Alas,\u00a0I would not hear Matt preach\u00a0in-person or via video, as this was the church’s Quarterly Celebration Service.<\/p>\n But, as Campus Pastor Steve Hardin\u00a0reiterated\u00a0several times throughout the service, what was happening at The\u00a0Village Church was not centered around a pastor or anything that\u00a0individuals have done, but instead was centered on Jesus Christ and His glorious Gospel.\u00a0 If you\u00a0walked away from the service confused as to who Jesus is and what Jesus has done for you,\u00a0it was not for lack of\u00a0a clear Gospel presentation.<\/p>\n God would speak throughout this service, from the\u00a0congregational songs that were\u00a0sung with passion (including “Oh, How\u00a0He Loves,”<\/em>\u00a0a song that my Student Pastor would tell you is one of my very favorites \ud83d\ude09\u00a0) to the Baby slide show and\u00a0from the\u00a0Baptismal Service\u00a0to the observance of the Lord’s Supper, God spoke.<\/p>\n There were some aspects of the worship service at The Village Church that I found different\u00a0 from my own experience as a Southern Baptist. Just to be clear, different does not necessarily mean bad or wrong — it just means different.\u00a0 Apart from the last baptismal candidate, the\u00a0first five were baptized by friends and\/or family (including one man who was baptized by his sister and wife).\u00a0 I don’t believe any of those performing the first five\u00a0baptisms were ordained (although I could be wrong), but I have never experienced a non-ordained man (much less a woman, ordained or not) officiating a baptism.\u00a0While I may not do it that way in the church where I serve, the beauty of autonomy of the local church allows us to do things differently.\u00a0 Ultimately, I thought each of the candidates’ testimonies were powerful and spoke clearly of how God, through Jesus Christ, had changed their lives.\u00a0 Not only did they preach (testify) with words, they\u00a0preached a sermon\u00a0by being\u00a0“buried with Christ in the baptismal waters, rising to walk in\u00a0newness of life.”\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n At the conclusion of the service, the Lord’s Supper was observed. \u00a0Before the bread and juice were served, Pastor Steve told the congregation that this was “an open communion”<\/em> for those who have trusted Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord.\u00a0 That was about as much fence that was put around the Table.<\/a>\u00a0 Serving the Lord’s Supper were both men and women (mostly younger) who were covenant members of The Village Church and who had volunteered that morning to serve.\u00a0 In order to quickly serve about 500-600 people (my estimate), both the bread (in bowls) and the juice (in standard cup holders) were passed around at the same time.\u00a0 Stephen and I both participated in this very special time of worship.<\/p>\n