New Church

We may have found our church here in Atlanta. We've only been twice, but so far it seems like this is probably where we'll end up. It's called Northpoint Community Church and it's in Alpharetta, Ga. The pastor is a guy named Andy Stanley (you might have heard of him...he's written some books and I think speaks at Promise Keepers and stuff). Another one you may have heard of is Louie Giglio...he leads the singles service and is known for his affiliation with the Passion Praise conferences. It's kind of far away (it takes 35-40 minutes to get there, but really everything here does) and it's soooooo big. I mean big big. You may think you've seen big churches before (ala Central Christian), but seriously...this church makes that look like a start up in a middle school gym. The first time we visited a few weeks ago, we got there late and had to park literally 1/2 a mile away and walk to the church. When we got inside, the main auditorium and the overflow were both full and we had to sit on the floor at the back. The message was really good, but we didn't think we would go back because it was really kind of a hassle. We visited another church a few times which was ok, but I just had a weird feeling like maybe everything was just a little too slick. It's hard to explain...the preaching seemed ok and the music was good. I all just felt very plastic. I was getting a vibe from the praise band that just seemed phony. The whole time they were up there playing I felt like they were posing for a CD cover or something. So we went back to Northpoint today and even though it's more of a logistical challenge, it just feels a lot more right. Andy Stanley is such an engaging speaker. He's funny and really down to earth and just has a very conversational way about him almost like you're just sitting across the kitchen table having a conversation. It's just comes across as so accessible that you almost don't realize how powerful the thing's he's sharing are. Most of his messages from the past year are online...you can watch the video or listen to the audio if you have time. His message on Intimacy with God is especially good. He started a series today called "The Cross, the Star and the Crescent". It's about the relationship and historic connection between Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Really interesting stuff. The only part of this church that I'm worried about is that it's so big I really want to make sure we get connected. We still don't really know anyone here yet, so church will be our main avenue for meeting people and making friends. I miss our friends back home so much. It's nice though to kind of have the church question settled so at least we can start with some kind of a routine there.