Pretty interesting day. We usually overdo Sundays and try to get the most out of it, educating ourselves to the various flavors of Christianity. This time the Nashville church tour took me first to Christ Community Church (christcommunity.org) in Franklin for an early morning service at 9am. CCC is a presbyterian church, very warm and welcoming (Thank you Nathan for bringing us along and introducing us).
Then off in high speed in order to make the 11am service at Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Nashville. Now, if you believe that parking spots right outside a crammed cathedral might be tricky to find, behold the miracle. One reserved specially for us – ten meters from the entrance. Now, the trick is to read the signs carefully. Parking just might be allowed in strange spots during Sundays. Being an Episcopalian church, service was somewhat different. Well, if you compare presbyterian churches having rock music thundering through the speakers with a traditional Lutheran High church with a visiting boys choir from the UK, you are rather likely to find differences. That adds to the experience though.
Lunch. Then off again to Crosspoint at 6am (well, a rather long lunch at Chappy’s…). Crosspoint (crosspoint.tv) was really interesting. Esentially being a rock concert – great music, great stage – with suprisingly little preaching going on. Pete – the pastor – related to our everyday job situation and the necessity of holding on to your identity as well as your purpose. But he had an easy day as far as I am concerned. Anybody who quotes Ecclesiastes – one of my favorite books – will get high marks.
Now, I really liked the format being a mix of entertainment and philosophy. Some would probably think that there was too little religion and preaching in there. However, I think the format has the potential to appeal to my home country of Sweden. Or any other secular country for that matter. An important part of getting people who are not accustomed to the Bible to read it more is probably to not show it down their throats, but rather to relate to everyday situations. Plus it was fun.
Ann, who introduced us to to Crosspoint, has been bashing us for not being entertaining enough. I have to give her credit for that.
We finished off the day visiting Campus Crusade’s Sunday night meeting at Vanderbilt University. Joe Thomas made a very nice introduction and we invited them to trash the Voxbiblia.com website. We need feedback. Loads of it.