Visitin’ Baptist Temple

After a brief email conversation with Pastor Collins, I visited Connersville Baptist Temple. More than anything else, it wasn’t what I was used to. And yet, I loved it, and I hope that my enthusiasm remains after visiting a few more times.

Doctrinally, the church is fundamental Baptist: They believe the Bible is the plenary, verbally inspired Word of God and that it is infallible, inerrant, and authoritative. They’re dispensational premillennialists. Etc., etc. Pastor Collins had a doctrinal statement ready to hand me as soon as he met me, as I had requested one. And I’m right there with them as far as that goes.

The church itself is beautiful; I’ve always admired the outside appearance, but the inside doesn’t disappoint. Technology such as projectors, PowerPoint, and studio lighting are utilized, which is cool with me. To deny the use of them would, technically, deny the use of automobiles to get to the church in the first place. At least, that’s how I see it.

The music and dress is a bit more contemporary than what I’m used to in a church setting; however, it is well with my soul for that is my life outside of church as well. Further, there is no Biblical mandate demanding the traditional styles (which at one point were “contemporary” and unacceptable themselves) be used.

An invitation has been extended to Alicia and me to attend the homebuilder’s class, a Sunday school class for newlyweds. I look forward to checking that out, provided I’m still there at the end of September. I’ve been invited to join, if the Lord’s willing.

Pastor Collins seems like a great guy–even if he doesn’t shop Wal-mart–and I enjoyed talking with him after the service. Perhaps the coolest part of all this is that he brought up that he’s been waiting for the Lord to send someone to the church with website design/maintenance talents so that he could be hired to do the church website.. He brought this up to me after viewing Beckman Ministries. Muy interesante. Ultimately, it will be the attitudes of the church members, content of the sermons (the sermon tonight was wonderfully Christ-centric), and spirit of the services which determine whether I stay or not. If I do, the chance at my first professional (i.e., for pay) website work is sugar-rich icing on an already alluring cake.

I don’t make a ton of money at Wal-mart, and the supplemental income this could yield could be the answer to prayers not yet prayed.

A look at their current site tells me that I could recreate it (and improve upon it) quite easily using WordPress. They are using some sort of blogging software now, and the template looks like it was designed using Dreamweaver, if I’m recognizing the comments in the XHTML source correctly. I’ve no doubt I could recreate their site using perhaps even the same layout while at the same time creating semantic markup which would increase accessibility. It would be a fun project, and I hope I get the chance at it.

Alicia will most likely be visiting Baptist Temple with me this Sunday, and we’ll certainly have a lot to talk about afterwards.

Pray for us!

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