Week 24 - Glenwood Community Church

glenwoodcc.org

Expanded our radius just a bit this week and ventured out near our old church stomping grounds. Glenwood Community Church is located on the way to rural Clark County, on the edge of cow pastures and tree farms. GCC is one of the larger churches we have visited, offering two services with seating for about 500. We went to the later service and the auditorium was filled to capacity and, from what we saw, GCC has a broad cross-section of ages represented. It was evident that they have a robust children's and youth ministry, however the emphasis this week was on the upcoming Vacation Bible School where they expected several hundred children to be involved.

The auditorium was well lit and had some indirect natural light from above. An overhead screen was used for song lyrics, announcements, and bible passages during the message. Music was provided by five instrumentalists, including two vocalists. One thing we noticed immediately with the music was that the volume of the band was well balanced to allow the voices of the congregants to be heard easily heard throughout the auditorium. In addition they lead us through a selection contemporary praise songs without over performing. 

The message was based on Luke 5:27-32 and entitled Following Jesus Changes Everything. One thing we appreciated was the pastor gave a brief recap of the previous week's message, something we have always appreciated from our old church and noticed is not that common. Leading us through an expository study of the passage the pastor focused on how Jesus' calling of Levi the Tax Collector (Matthew) lead to significant changes in Levi's life: he left everything and introduced Jesus to everyone. Bringing us to the part of the story where Jesus is accused of hanging out with the socially undesirable. Through the actions of Levi and Jesus we were left with several takeaways: First, following Jesus unmasks the motives and loves of our heart. Second, following Jesus changes everything that we have. Third, following Jesus changes the way we look at who we are. Fourth, following Jesus changes what we do. Last, following Jesus changes how we look at others. In light of this interaction between Jesus and Levi we discover that Jesus' deceptively simple sounding "follow me" encompasses every aspect of our lives.

The people of GCC showed a lot of energy throughout our visit. While our interactions were brief and perfunctory it felt that there is a high level of personal connection between regular attenders.