Nevada Theology

This past Sunday we decided to try out one of the local churches. I found a list online--it was quite long considering this town is only a little larger than my old high school. We crossed out the ones we were already late for, and then headed out. We pulled up to our first choice after going around the block a few times, missing it as it looked like a small house. There were a grand total of 4 cars in the "parking lot." We looked at each other and decided to try the next one. I hate being clearly a guest and introduced to everyone and their aunt, sister, cousin, daughter-in-law and pet hamster, all while I'm trying to look super excited and sneaking my hand sanitizer as there are invariably 6 sick people sneezing and coughing their way through service. I digress...

We headed out of to the next one, which was much larger, but clearly Catholic (due to actually attractive architecture), which is fine, but we aren't Catholic. Then comes the biggest one in town, the LDS church. Can I say "hell no!?" That sounds terrible, but ya, not going there... Anyway, we found one that looked inviting enough, and had like 8 cars in the parking lot, woot woot! It was called New Hope Foursquare Church. I like hope, and I used to play foursquare, so we thought, what the heck, let's try it.

We were 36 minutes late, but it's hard to be on time when you have no clue when it starts (if you are wondering how we found out, we asked a random lady walking in what time service started). We stepped into the bright foyer and looked into the sanctuary, which, to our unadjusted eyes, looked pitch black. Are they normal? Dancing with snakes? All 500 years old? We stepped into the darkness blindly, or rather, Brady pulled me into it. We self consciously slipped into the 3rd row (of 5) and surveyed our surroundings as the preacher said hello. I hated that we were called out in front of everyone, but as we were sitting less than 5 feet from where he was preaching, it probably would have been more awkward if he ignored us.

The sanctuary was small, but nicely decorated, and the congregation looked pretty normal if not for one little thing--there were kids. Everywhere. Like a lot of them. Everyone had at least 2, and they were all under 6. Wow, I thought, I'd better (or rather, we'd better) get busy to keep up with these folks. Brady looked a little nervous, he kept looking at them as they ran around and made little kid noises, occasionally looking at me like, "What the heck?!" I just smiled and told him to try to ignore them, which was challenging at best. The preacher looked about our age, and it became evident that 2 of the little rugrats were his. Every so often they would go up to him and he would acknowledge them and then tell them to go back and sit next to their (extremely pregnant) mommy.

I actually kind of like that the kids were in the service, it made it kind of homey, like we were all gathered in someone's living room. After a brief sermon (on parenting, of course) we got to chat with a few folks and the preacher invited us over for dinner in a few weeks (after the baby is born). The church culture was so different than the South. Everyone wore jeans, and several people wore boots. The brothel, gambling, and drinking were all brought up casually with and/or by the preacher, things that would have any good Southern Belle blushing. Thank goodness I'm no Southern Belle. We plan on going back, though we do not plan on adding anymore than 2 to the congregation, for the time being at least. ;-)