The Awesome God Project™®©

I’m Deanna. Drew asked me to fill in because he’s sick tried to pawn his writing duties off asked me to be a guest blogger after visiting Christ Church of Cranbrook with him. You can find me at Soul Like a Spider or on Twitter.

After waking up late, almost walking out the door without knowing where I was going, having to stop at a gas station to grab some chocolate milk to keep my empty and noisy stomach from taking part of the festivities, and accidentally trying to go in through the out driveway (zing!), my morning at Christ Church Cranbrook was off to a weird start. (This is the Awesome Project, after all. No post here is complete without some strange and seemingly controversial cultural reference in the title. Zeppelin for the win.)

“I’m probably going to be about 5 mins late.” That turned out to be a lie, it was more like 15.
“Okay. I’m on the right side of the church, about 15 rows from the entrance.”

The campus that the church is located on is peaceful. The driveways are strolling, the parking lots are nicely spaced and are scattered throughout a landscape full of trees, large sections of grass, and old architecture. I mean, I like my megachurches sitting in the middle of a plain, industrial parking lots built for a football stadiums as much as the next

Christ Church Cranbrook in springtime

person, but there is something to be said about the serenity that was immediately present from the environment as I was walking in.

Luckily I walked in while there was singing going on so my awkward search to find Drew wasn’t noticed. I must say, he wasn’t lying when he said the church was beautiful enough to make me want to immediately convert. The sanctuary was thin, not quite as wide as the Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal in Quebec, Canada or some of the old European cathedrals in Amsterdam, Netherlands, but it was long. Everything is built of grey stone, and the paintings on the walls are just stunning.

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I know.  What a bold title.  An audacious title.  To level such accusations and observations against a church body shows a blatant lack of respect for the parishioners, and my Christian brothers and sisters.  But I tell you, kind reader, there was a Dog in the audience.  No, seriously, there was a Seeing Eye training dog in the audience.  A golden retriever puppy (Maybe? We stupidly sat in the balcony because no one informed us of a puppy in the main auditorioum.  Strike 1, Kensington!). The dog laid happily in the aisle way as the trainer petted him (except for the one bark that came during the announcement).  Jealous for sure.

As we drank our cappuccinos at the Great Lakes Café on the upper-level of Kensington, the conversation mainly focused on the dog in the audience.  I mean, hello, puppy!  But we also discussed the community, the odd quirks, and the environment we observed during our two weeks (only one for Brother Jordan).  Last week I addressed the message, now I’m gonna talk about the elephant in the room: the megachurch feel.

According to the Hartford Institute of Religious Research, Kensington boasts an average attendance of 11,099 people (I assume spread out over the campuses) and also is in the handy-dandy megachurch directory the Hartford Institute constructed.  The average attendance beats out Keith Butler’s church by 99 people for the highest total in Michigan (I’m not measuring overall reach and influence, which with Rob Bell’s popularity as an author, I assume Mars Hill would win).  While impressive, its just numbers and I want to address my views on the larger tenets that are assumed when the stereotypical megachurch gets addressed. (A Deconstruction on the Christian MegaChurch? Postmodernism for the win!)

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Dear God,

What’s up?  You’re never on AIM anymore, we miss you lol!  I’m doing my Awesome God Project, and I need some help on how to write it.  It’s very tough figuring out how to approach it and write about my experience.  Like, what do I focus on?  The message?  The whole church?  The people?  How do I incorporate this into one coherent blog post (btw, UPDATE YOUR BLOG)?  Anyway, I’m gonna go try to write this—call me dude!

Love,

Drew (like you didn’t know haha)

Dear Drew,

Frak off, I’m watching The Plan.

God

I want to point out to people – nothing would make me happier if God actually spoke those words to me.  Or something BSG-related.  And on that note bear with me as I figure out how to write this. Read more…