Church experimentation

I, the almost self-proclaimed atheist, and Paula, the one who calls herself "spiritual", made our way to Lennoxville's Anglican church on Sunday morning, whilst our baptized Catholic stayed home and slept in. It is something that we started doing in our first-year, and now we try to fit it in whenever we can.

Every Sunday that we've gone to church here, we've managed to go to a different one every time. This is not too difficult for two reasons: a) there are quite a few churches in this small town and b) we do not, by any means, go every Sunday.

Our goal is to go to every church in Lennoxville; I think we're almost there.

Out of all of the churches we've hit, the Catholic one is our least favourite, followed closely by the University's Anglican chapel. The minister was energetic, and the chapel is very beautiful and ornamented, but we found the chapel a little too beautiful and ornamented and golden for our tastes. The real cincher was when we encountered a man there who latched onto us right away and practically told us to come every week. Needless to say, that scared us away, and we had to literally sneak out through the side door of the room where we had "fellowship" after the service just so he wouldn't see us.

It's neat to explore the town in this church hunt way. It seems as though Paula and I both have the same tastes when it comes to church and its community. We didn't enjoy the fact that we were barely noticed at the Catholic service. We also get a little freaked out when churches are lavishly decorated with practically everything in gold; we like simple, usually wooden, churches. We do not like being hounded and mobbed, like people looking for fresh blood. We like those who welcome, and we like the churches that seem to have a friendly community. Basically, what church is for us is a place where we feel the most comfortable and the most welcomed. Also, having a really good organist never hurts either.

It had been such a long time since we had done on of our church experiments/escapades. I forgot how nice it is. It just felt good being away from the student body and being among families and older people in a small, friendly community. This Anglican church was particularly friendly without being at all overwhelming. The service was very easy going, and there was even a skit done by young teens. All in all, this church experiment was quite a success, and we very much enjoyed it, and, of course, not excluding the particularly scrumptious "fellowship" after the service.