Mystery Worship Series

exhausted angelI spent much of 2014 and 2015 visiting a different church each week and then writing a newspaper article/blog post about what I saw and experienced there. The United Methodist Church news organization interviewed me after it was over and wrote of my experience here. I thought it was kind of funny how the journalist summarized some of my visits:

When Thomas had a bad experience, her reports for the newspaper were restrained — notable more for lack of enthusiasm than for outright criticism. But she would post the columns on her blog and then offer more commentary, a kind of director’s cut of her impressions.

Of one megachurch where she heard the prosperity gospel preached amid aggressive appeals for money, Thomas wrote on her blog: “I think it is the most evil place I have ever seen.”

The prosperity gospel, Neo-Calvinist theology, lousy biblical exegesis and any worship service where the pastor and praise band’s performance seemed to matter more than the congregation’s involvement in worship all these were subjects for hot comment on Thomas’ blog. When any of those elements was combined with male-only church leadership, she felt even more need to vent.

But I also learned a lot about what our next door neighbors believed and it opened a different world for me.

If you are interested in my doing a Mystery Worship at your church, please get in touch with me and let me know.

Here are a few of the places I visited:

Greek Orthodox

Reform Jewish

Unitarian Universalists and Seventh Day Adventists

Prestonwood Baptist Church

Jehovah’s Witness

LDS, First Try

Mormon

Muslim and Misery for the female

Quaker/Society of Friends

Unity Spiritual Center of Denton

St. Andrew Presbyterian, Denton

Prestonwood Baptist, Dallas

Anglican Ash Wednesday

Multi-site Village Church

Lutheran Church: A Confession Mirror

Aggressive Church Planting, Acts 29 style

Mystery Worship, Costa Rican style

Cowboy Church

The Messiah and The Methodists

The Performance Church: First Baptist Denton

Denton Mystery Worship Nine: Incense, Bells, Exclusion, and the Economy

Sick Day Mystery Worship: Sunday Morning Religious Programs

Glory of Zion, a Whirling Dervish Service

Friendship Baptist: a nearly perfect experience

Valley Creek Church, Denton

The Frozen Chosen and the AME Church

Denton Bible Church: The Subtle Seduction