The Official Disclaimer Post

What is this blog for?
It's for my own personal use and entertainment. I hope you may be entertained too. I am starting this blog as a way to recount my adventures in church shopping. It is also a useful way of remembering where I've been. I hope to also use this blog as a forum for thinking about what it means to be a part of the Church.

Why the rating system?
I don't know if you've experienced this, but I certainly have: I visit a church for the first time and there's a checks and balances thing going on inside of my head. "I don't like that song." "The pastor made a funny joke." You probably give a rating to a church whether or not you realize it. In my numerical ratings, I am using a foul system to satirize what happens when one goes church shopping. I recognize the black hole in the human heart provoked by our American consumerist tendencies to go to a church that makes us feel good and feel comfortable. I am at once living and rebelling against the practices of church shopping.

Isn't this...sacrilegious?
Hmmmm...no. We should question the church and its motives. I think we should be ever evolving and changing in order to become more like Jesus. We should not be sitting comfortably in our church pew. The message of Jesus is radical and every aspect of our lives from our eating and sleeping and driving and church going should be just a radical and lovingly awesome as our beautiful Creator.

Is it underhanded to pass judgment on these churches by posting it on a blog without discussing it with the church's leadership?
Maybe. I hope to be respectful in my humor and critiques. And like I said, this is primarily for my personal use and most of what I will post on here will be similar to what I was thinking anyway. This could turn into a whole other argument about the private and public sector, but I think I'll leave it at that.

Your heading is a quote from Martin Luther. What is that about?
I am in no way comparing myself or my journey in searching for a church home with the grandiosity of the Reformation of the 16th century. I think that the 21st century Church is on (and perhaps in) the cusp of a new reformation. With that quote, I am echoing Luther's fervent desire to find the truth about God and the Church.