7000 Matlock Rd.
Arlington, TX 76002
(817) 465-3500
Ok, back to the project now that I'm home from Lubbock. Today I went to Eden Road Community Church. I have driven past this church several times on my way to Walmart and destinations down south. Several weeks ago I attempted to contact this church via email to get info on their singles group, if any. They never responded.
Not being one to write off a church for clerical issues (I've seen how some operate behind the scenes), I decided to give it a try this Sunday. ERCC offers two services each Sunday, and I went to the second service which starts at 10:45am. ERCC has two buildings apparent from the main road, but when I turned in to the parking lot, I saw three temporary/modular buildings behind the main buildings. They are in use as I saw some people going to them between the two services. I went to the main building for the worship service.
The main building is utilitarian and spartan. There are very few decorations, if any. I didn't notice any embellishments whatsoever. The interior was white with expose duct work and gymnasium-type halogen lights. The floor was plain linoleum, and I noticed that there were basketball court markings on it. Either this building was at one point a gym, or it is used or will be used as a gym in the future.
The main sanctuary is of the typical modern church type. It has linked chairs, no pews, a modular stage and sound booth, and the projector/screen combination. Well, it has a projector, but not a screen. The projector was simply displaying its fair on the wall. There was no choir. The stage had modern instruments: guitars, bass, keyboard, drums. Worship was conducted by a six member worship team, and the music was modern. There were hymnals under some of the seats in the sanctuary, but none of the music came from them. It was all projected on the wall, and all thoroughly modern.
Two songs into the service, and the minister stopped us and read Psalm 136 in its entirety. This was nice as it was a nice way to ground the song we had been singing. He referred to the concept of 7/11 music, although he didn't use that term. He pointed out that there are times that God does make repetitious statements, and Psalm 136 definitely shows that. While I thought that was a nice touch, I was slightly irked that there was some editorializing going on during the reading. I don't know how much of what the minister said was written in his Bible (in a different translation) and how much was added, but there were definitely some words that sounded added to me.
Two more songs later, and we were in the main service. For all the pastor's earlier editorializing, he had a good message, if a little unpolished. It wasn't stark, but it wasn't some bite-sized sound byte message, either. That was refreshing. He spoke on how families are supposed to operate according to Colossians 3:18-21. The upshot of the entire sermon was: everyone in a family is supposed to love and serve each other.
Once the message was over, the offering was taken. I put my calling card in the plate. There were a few more announcements, and then we were done. There was no altar call. I had anticipated this earlier as the bulletin made mention of a membership class, and the pastor had also announced the membership class earlier in the service.
After the service I talked with a few people. One was a girl called Jessica. Jessica is a med student who has recently moved to Fort Worth. She said that she had been coming here for about a month or so, and she really liked it. Jessica said that there were a lot of places to get plugged in, and that the people were nice.
I also talked with a couple of their members who seemed to be deacons or elders. From them I got the following:
- The membership of the church is about 300 strong
- There is currently no senior pastor
- The pastor this morning was the youth pastor
- There is no singles group
To add to the housekeeping, I noticed that the sanctuary could hold 200-300 bodies, so that jives with the membership number. I didn't see that many old people here. There were a bunch of couples a few children, and, by my estimate, only two or three singles including Jessica (no ring), but excluding me. The church is either actively seeking to expand or thinking about expanding as there is a "master plan" of drawings for an anticipated expansion of the facilities.
On leaving, I picked up a few brochures that the church had in the back. One was a history of the church, and it is fairly unremarkable save to say that this church has moved a couple of times, and they are not afraid to abandon buildings to relocate. One concerned worship, and I briefly scanned it to see if it contained any specifics about the church. It really didn't. Finally, I picked up a brochure on their small groups. This interests me as there are some topics coming up that interest me.
So where does ERCC fall on my list? To be sure, I'm not all that excited about joining a church without a pastor. That means that they are looking for one, and they have no clue where he'll lead, so membership for me is out of the question at this point. The small groups interest me, and I may try to go to one or two classes to see how they work out. Without a singles group my interest level drops, but the demographics aren't terrible. I'll put it on my may revisit list.
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