Becca's adventure at Oceanside Baptist Church

Oh what a beautiful sunny day today was. Hannah and I got to go to the Oceanside Baptist Church! Oh man, there is just so much energy when it comes to the worship service; it was quite….interesting.

Upon walking in, almost late, we noticed that there were a fair number of people that come here. The service was held in a school gym, but I think that coincides with one quote that the Pastor said which was, “Church is not a building or a Cathedral, we are the church.” I quite liked this quote because I agree with it. It shouldn’t matter where a sermon is held, as long as the people are there, that’s where the church is. As soon as we got to the door, we were handed a pamphlet which said, “Taste and See that the Lord is good. From Psalm 34:8” With it, there was a lovely picture of 3 beer bottles with different coloured liquid, with the name of the church on them. I was kind of weirded out that it was on an alcoholic beverage, but hey! If what they think tastes good is beer, then so be it. Hannah and I seated ourselves closer to the front of the stage, still wondering why there was alcohol on the cover.

The sermon started with a lady welcoming everyone, and then the songs began. The first song we sang was a good song, repetitive at the end though. Then another song started up, and again, was repetitive. EXCEPT this one seemed to go on FOR EVER. Each song was at least 5 minutes long and we were standing to sing them. I was getting tired from standing. It felt like we were singing for 15 minutes. The whole song bit was weird for me because I feel like I am not being as respectful when I sing a rock song in place of a hymn. Call me old fashioned. It is just different. Yeah, different. After the first…half hour or hour, the little children are taken away, probably to do arts and crafts and whatnot, and the real sermon begins.

Oh! Today I found out that the Baptist faith believes in the trinity. Interesting, in my opinion. I can see why they might think that, but they are three separate beings, at least to me. Yes, the scriptures are confusing, especially if you look at John 17:21-23. But throughout the scriptures, you hear Jesus referring to God as his Father. If they were one person, that wouldn’t make sense. Why would they use 3 different names for one person then? If they were one person, then just use God rather than giving multiple names. It’s too confusing. Also, they did talk about the Holy Sprit as if it was a separate being, so that just made it worse.

You can tell that the people that go there are pretty intense when it comes to their worship service. Already in the first song, people were jumping up and down and waving one or two hands in the air. It was…interesting. At the same time that we had these worship songs, I felt like we were at a rock concert for people who didn’t want to listen to rock with cruder language. At any rate, if that is how they worship, so be it. I use hymns, they use rock music and I should respect the difference.

There were many quotes mentioned by one man named A. W. Tozer. I had no idea who he was and after searching him up on wikipedia, I still didn’t have a very good idea of who he was. From what I can guess, he was very interested in religion and the “good word”. Did you know Baptists say that? I didn’t. I didn’t know what faith uses “the Good Word”, I guess baptist does. Other’s probably do too… either way. They quoted the Bible as well, using two versions, or something like that. If you are going to use a “translated” version (which over simplifies things) at least be consistent with which one you use. I think they used two different translations, but I am not completely sure because I had no idea what the Acronym stood for, for one of them. They used the NIV bible and the AMP bible. I had heard of the NIV one before, but never the AMP, whatever it is.

One thing I found to be quite interesting was that they changed the name of John the Baptist to John the Baptizer, because he DID the baptizing. Lot’s of people laughed when this was said, but I was not sure why and now am not sure if he was joking or not…

The Pastor himself was a pretty cool dude. I thought he was funny and he seemed to work well with a  crowd. He gives a lot of praise to God, which I like. It means that he is humble and not prideful. I guess the people in the crowd enjoyed his sermon because every once in a while, you would hear a couple people saying “Amen” as if to agree to what the Pastor has just stated. He said a couple of interesting things, in my opinion, but I did agree with the things he said, for the most part. He did make reference to how some churches have so many requirements and how they want you to conform. Also, how they have so many rules. Then he said that we have a hard enough time keeping the 10 commandments. I am not sure what he completely meant by that, but to me, it sounded as if he was saying that there were too many rules and that we needed a break from them, or at least less of them. For me, I disagree. Then again, I come from a church with many guidelines (I say guidelines because they are not rules. You still have a choice whether or not you want to keep them). As an example, you can choose whether or not you will refrain from drinking alcohol. Whatever you do is your choice and our church just advises against it. It just felt like we were being treated as children, not able to deal with a couple rules or guidelines.

After he was finished preaching, it was time to start the sacrament process. I think what they call it is “Breaking Bread” or something like that. I am not completely sure. For this, we got up and sang the SAME song AGAIN, before we could get to the bread and wine. After that song was finally over, some members of the congregation were up at the front and ready for people to take the bread and wine from them. It was quite a nice experience, even if Hannah and I didn’t go up and have it. They even had stuff for people that couldn’t have wheat or gluten, which was very thoughtful. As Hannah and I watched the people take their bread and wine back to their seat, I wondered why they didn’t take it right away. Then I saw that some people get together with their families and have a small little prayer session, which seemed pretty intense, so I didn’t want to stare for too long. After they were done, then they would take the bread and wine.

When that whole bit was over, they sang the SAME song again. This time, I refused to stand; I was too tired. Then the church ended. Hannah and I stayed a little while after so she could grab something from one of our friends that goes there and so I could ask the Pastor some questions. He was very kind to me, and when he found out I was Lds, he was very nice about it and mentioned he knew some Lds people and they were very nice. I asked him some questions about the sermon and he ended up giving me his notes that he had for the sermon. I thought that was quite nice of him.

This was definitely…a more interesting experience that I have had. Definitely not a faith that is the same as the rest minus a few opinions. It is more a faith for people who want to be “saved” and who want to be at a place where they can worship and not feel judged,  or do not have to adhere to the more strict or conservative ways of other religions. We did not have as many people rushing to us to say hello, but it didn’t matter, as we had arrived almost late anyways. The Pastor was very kind and a cool dude. There are some things in the Baptist faith that I do disagree with, but I tried not to be too harsh with voicing my opinion of said things. Hannah and I couldn’t have asked for a better day to go to the Baptist church, and I am very glad we did go.