Seventh Day Adventist Church

The message was on point for both Sabbath School and church. The right balance of current events and eyes on Christ (which can be hard to find, as usually you get an excess of one or the other), and a good amount of audience discussion during SS, all on point, as well (which can also be a challenge).

I guess they share a pastor (which I don't personally have a problem with, since we were never supposed to have pastors "hovering over the churches" to begin with and only went that route because we, like Israel of old, saw the heathen nations around us and begged our Samuel to give us a king, too), and he wasn't there this past week. So I'm assuming he alternates between 2 churches. However, if the other church is significantly larger, he may actually spend more weeks there. So I'm not sure how frequently to expect him at this location, at this point. And apparently he's a brand new pastor (to them, at least, 'though it sounded like he may be a new pastor in general, but I can't say for sure on that). They do offer pot luck once a month, and soup and sandwiches (or something like that) on an additional week, so that could support the twice a month pastor theory. But neither of those were going on this past Sabbath. We were also not invited anywhere for lunch ('though we've found that to be a rarity at country churches, where people are often driving half an hour or more to be there, so that was not unexpected... and since we've now moved to the vicinity and had a 40 minute drive ourselves, it wasn't an issue like it was when we first arrived in town and were staying in a hotel - or when we've passed through various locations on our way somewhere).

There weren't very many people in attendance last week, and only a few of them said hello to us and introduced themselves, or otherwise welcomed us (as opposed to another church we've visited several times now, where pretty much everyone welcomed us the very first week we attended, and there were 2-3 times as many people in attendance), even though we lingered for several minutes after the service. But the guest speaker was very friendly and engaged with us personally (apparently he is a retired pastor and a fairly regular guest speaker), as did a couple of others. So it wasn't an unfriendly church, either (we've been to one church before where we stayed for potluck afterwards and only one person spoke to us at all, and that wasn't until we were halfway through with our food - at which point we discovered that his wife and kids were out of town, but we actually knew them from our leadership with Pathfinders at the time!).

I should note that one of the leaders up front spoke really fast and kind of quietly, so he was a little hard to follow. But he wasn't the one giving the message, so it wasn't a big deal, and it's actually good to see them involving as many members as possible (and I'm sure he'll get easier to understand with practice). So I don't really count that as a negative, because everyone has to start somewhere, and I think back to when my husband first started getting up front, and he was awkward, too. But now he's become a great speaker. So I actually like it when a church stretches people to work for God. It's something we all need to be doing.

But, it's difficult to get a good read on the church after one visit when the pastor (and apparently a large extended family that is actively involved) is missing, especially in a church this small. And I guess I'm visiting it off the heels of attending the friendliest church I've ever been to (in 3 countries, 5 states, and countless locations at this point), so that could be lowering my overall impression of this one unfairly, as well. Because even in comparing it to the super-friendly church, the content was actually so good that we felt like we now weren't sure which location should be our new church home. So I guess we'll need to visit again and pray about it some more before settling on where to transfer our membership. What matters most is being where God wants you.