Churches in Charlotte

One fascinating and sometimes frustrating aspect of moving to a new city is finding a new church. Two weeks ago I went to a a church called Christ Central Church. I had heard about from someone, and stuck out to me because it actually takes place in a community theatre in a very unique, artsy part of town. Here is their surprisingly unimpressive website: http://www.christcentralchurch.com/

One of my favorite characteristics of this church is that it actually used to be a XXX theatre and the upstairs used to be a brothel. In fact, the church offices are currently in the previous brothel, and the numbers are still bolted to the door that indicated which room the prostitute was in. The pastor mentioned that it's a constant reminder of our fallen nature. I love that.



So I found a seat and we started worship. There was an older guitarist, a drummer and bassist. I'm usually not a huge fan of that many instruments in worship like this, but they played it very tastefully and it was actually pretty nice. There were 5 singers- 3 white girls, a girl that looked just like Alicia Keys, and a black male singer that looked a lot like LL Cool J. He had a GREAT gospel voice.



The pastor, who is a young black man that looks like Theo from the Bill Cosby Show with dreadlocks came out to preach. In general I really liked him, but I kinda thought he made too many references to rap music and I kinda questioned his sincerity during prayer--though, honestly, I don't really know him well enough to make that assumption.



They gave us a choice between wine and juice for communion, which I thought was very thoughtful. It's also a PCA reformed church which is awesome.

This past Sunday I went to Renovatus church. I had heard really good things about it so I thought I'd check it out. They're actually located inside a mall on a dodgey part of town, but I didn't have a problem with that. http://www.renovatuscommunity.com

The church is affiliated with Church of God which has some doctrines I don't think I agree with. It was borderline Charasmastic/Pentecostal and at times I was a bit uncomfortable. The preacher also sounded like he had about a dozen energy drinks before he went on stage too. It was really tough for me to pay attention because of that.



What I liked about the church were things that don't matter though- I loved the logo, the lead singer of the band, the all around laid back atmosphere. I also liked their ideas on reaching out to the homeless community.

Whether or not I'd want to go back to this church is in question, but I didn't get a strong feeling that I should. Who knows, we'll see.