Saturday, November 05, 2005

South Manchester Family Church (newfrontiers)

When visited:

10th July, 2005, 10:30am

Location:

the sports hall of Parrs Wood School, Didsbury

Welcome:

People on the door welcoming; little else. I saw some kids doing aerobics to "worship music" in a side room on my way in. No-one asked who or how I was.

Type of Service:

"Regional celebration" (several congregations together), with visiting speaker.

First Impressions:

Service was due to start at 10:30 with prayer at 10:15. I arrived at 10:20; there was no sign at all of prayer and the service started 10:39. There were probably around 250 people there, with very few over the age of 50.

Music:

Decent and fairly loud band at the front. Words on powerpoint, which seemed appalingly organised, often not getting to the verse by the time we'd finished singing it. Congregational singing was ok, but not great.

Sermon:

The sermon started well, talking about how our identity should be in Christ. However, after about 10 minutes, the preacher started going on and on about a prophecy he'd had. The good bits could have been done better, with more authority, more content and the same passion, from the Bible. The sermon ended with lots of people going forwards to have hands laid on them and fall over. By that stage, it was past the advertised finish time and I left.

Website:

Flashy

Overall:

Hmmmm. The impression I get is that the advertised product is better than the actual one. They seem to know what they should be doing... I could be really at home in a charismatic church, but not when they do some of this stuff.

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