AT HOME IN HEATH: VISITING FIRST METHODIST ROCKWALL
(First Published on Travel Talk)
In an effort to be sure we’ve left no stone un-turned, we visited First Methodist Rockwall recently. Growing up Baptist, Methodists always seemed like the biggest rival in our evangelical conference, so I felt like a traitor as I walked in the door.
In my single days, Lovers Lane Methodist was sort of the “it” church. I actually went there for several weeks and attended a Sunday School Class that was studying a book you may have heard of, How to Survive the Loss of a Love. It’s a great book and I’ve used principles from it in many situations, but at the end of the study I realized we hadn’t opened our Bibles once. This wasn’t my style of Sunday School.
Shortly after that I discovered Northwest Bible Church and I didn’t have to look any further. Even though I’ve journeyed through many other churches with Bill, for a variety of reasons, I still feel like my home church is Northwest.
My next Methodist experience was a phone conversation with one of their ministers. Someone from Northwest introduced us (long before I met Bill) because they thought we’d be a match made in heaven. I never actually met this minister in person and I don’t remember his name, because our theological differences became immediately apparent in the first phone call. I simply believe what the Bible says about sex and he felt it was up for interpretation. His interpretation was that when he was dating someone he expected them to put out. That relationship wasn’t going to go anywhere.
Theology is important to me, so that was sort of the end of the line for me and the Methodists. Enter Mr. Bill. Coming from a liturgical background he’s not as fussy about theology. He saw a nice building and thought it might be a nice church. He’s not as wary of snake handling as I am.
Let me tell you, if you are looking for a great Methodist Church, it’s right over there across from the new county courthouse. The facilities are lovely and a new building is coming up right now. We were greeted and welcomed and greeted and welcomed to beat the band. The seats are comfortable, the sound system is good, the music was great – the selections, soloist and the choir. It’s obvious that they have a whole lot of ministry going on. High marks all around.
The sermon was about Crabby and Grabby…I mean Esau and Jacob – Crabby and Grabby were the nicknames the preacher tagged them with. Somehow the story skipped from youthful competition to end of life reconciliation without really addressing all the tough stuff in the middle. Bill tagged it Theology Light. You can’t judge a whole church by one sermon and Bill liked a lot of things about FMR, so who knows, I might be destined for Methodology – or would that be Methodism. I’ll have to find that out before we visit again.
There’s really only one more church on my list. After that we’ll be doing the second round, which will be Sunday School Classes. You may think I’m crazy for blogging about this, but in my world, it’s more important than granite!
Faith Talk 