Church Review - Eden Road Community Church

Eden Road Community Church

7000 Matlock Rd.

Arlington, TX 76002

(817) 465-3500

www.edenroad.com

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.

Temporarily Not Single

Yesterday I had planned to try to not be home as much as possible this weekend, but it's been a hard week, and I wasn't really in the mood to play games, so instead I just did the responsible host/homeowner routine today. I slept in way late due to the second shift madness and got up about an hour and a half before we were to meet my uncle and his family for lunch.

That lunch took a lot longer than I thought. We showed up at the restaurant at noon and didn't leave until nearly 3:30pm! The usual thing happened: My parents talked with my aunt and uncle while I talked with my cousin who is one year older than me (more or less). My uncle's family friend was also there, and she split her time about half and half in the conversations.

Heather, my cousin, and I talked about school, high school, the reunion I just got back from, church, TV, and anything else we could think of. It's nice to have that type of person who you can just talk to without having to do any kind of mental filtering. Both my and her parents embarrass us to some extent, and we were corralling them to a certain degree, but, with one exception, lunch went incredibly smooth (a nice change from the norm).

After lunch we all split up. Mother thought I was going home with them, but the fact that I drove my own vehicle and had told her numerous times I had other things to do along didn't seem to register with her. I checked my clock and noticed that the Pampered Chef party I had planned to go to was already over, except that it wasn't today! It's two weeks from today! (Thank God for iPhones and Facebook.) My afternoon having become uncomplicated I escaped to Academy Sports to talk to their golf guys for awhile (yes, I'm starting a new hobby, God help me!) and then came home while mother was asleep.

At home I finally hauled out the new fence slats and nails and repaired the fence between my house and the vacant house next door. (That's a long story for another time and another blog.) That work done I just hung around with my dad until mother woke up and started stirring the pot again. Dad and I have an adult-to-adult relationship where mother still treats me like I'm ten years old. So far it's been an amicable weekend with me copying daddy's CDs (he has great taste in music [or he's cloned it on me, whichever]) and getting the house in a little order.

Tomorrow may be a little more contentious as there is nothing to do but go to separate churches. Mother wants to go to "my church." Except that I don't have a church any more. So naturally she says that we'll all go to First Baptist Arlington. My response? Not a chance in Hell! This project is my own undertaking with my own goals. I honestly don't need mother interfering with it. Will I go to FBC Arlington? Maybe, but definitely by myself.

Downshifting and Hiding

This is one of those days where singleness is something to be desired. Today my parental units drove down from Lubbock to stay with me for the weekend. Being around my mother is always stressful, and I already saw her last week while I was up in Lubbock for the high school reunion. So my solution was to hide, at least for tonight.

There were just two little tricks to that: working second shift and going to one of my friend's Friday the 13th event. Working second shift turned out to not be a big deal due to the fact that 2nd shift starts after 12 noon, so working my hours around that was no big deal. (Finding the help I needed at work to get my tasks done, now that wasn't at all easy.) I worked until nearly 7pm, then I went to the Friday the 13th thing.

The Friday the 13th event is connected with another of my hobbies: geocaching. I have a long and sordid history with geocaching, and I quit actively caching months (if not years) ago, so I wasn't exactly looking forward to talking about caching for several hours tonight. But, seeing as how I was hiding, I decided to go and have as good a time as I could. That, and the event was organized by a single girl about my age, so not only could I hide, I also had a prospect!

I hid out at the event, well, dinner really, for a couple of hours. I saw a lot of friends from the geocaching community, and amazingly, we really didn't talk about caching all that much. There was a lot of talk about my weight loss and other personal things, which was exactly what I needed after a day of frustration and a weekend of stress. I talked at length with one lady who had had a bariatric surgery, and we compared notes. I saw one of my colleagues from work who had just gotten back tonight from a business trip. I talked with his wife for a little while to compare work notes. There were some door prizes, and even though I didn't win, it was nice just to be there in the atmosphere.

During the night, I talked with Monica, the single girl event organizer. I had met her before years ago at another geocaching event, and at the time she was engaged to a guy, so I really didn't get to know her that well. Now that she is a free agent again, I talked with her at length. It turns out we have a lot of the same interests, and we have a few divergent ones that could be fun to explore. She's 30, and I'm 31, so there is no problem with age differential. After dinner, when everybody else took off, we stayed and talked for another two and a half hours in the parking lot in front of the restaurant. It was a good, long conversation coving a lot of ground, and I think we might have connected somewhat. She likes Futurama, but hasn't seen any of the new episodes, so sometime this week I'll call her and invite her to see the new season that I have DVRed. This could be fun, folks! Stay tuned!

Working Second Shift

My chances of getting out and about have changed somewhat. For the next week or so I get to work second shift, which means going in to the office in the afternoon and staying until late at night. I'm thinking most people would be available to go out in the evenings, so that puts me out of that circle. But then again, chances are I wouldn't have gone out anyway.

Sorry for the short post tonight. I've got more interesting things to ponder, and they're coming soon.

A Comedy of Errors

There are times in this world where everything seems to click. Most of the time some things click, and some don't. Then there are times when nothing clicks into place at all. This is the case with Kathryn and me.

You may remember two or three Sundays ago Yizong brought his friend Kathryn over to my house to introduce us. The day didn't exactly go well as I was trying to play host to three people, made sure nobody blew themselves up, and watched out for a 1-year old. Three hours later, the 1-year old had her first scar courtesy of my cat, and Kathryn and Yizong had to leave. End result: we met, but only briefly.

Yizong tried again. Two Sundays ago he preached his ultimate sermon at RCC. He asked Kathryn and I to attend. We both came separately (why it didn't occur to any of us to have me pick Kathryn up is beyond me right now). I came; Kathryn was late and had her parents in tow, so there wasn't really time before the service for us to talk.

During the service, Kathryn asked me not to pass the communion paraphernalia to her (as she has not yet become a Christian). I knew that would produce controversy, but I did as I was asked. After the service there people more or less surrounded us. Kathryn and her parents were the curiosity, so everyone wanted to talk to her. I was the prodigal son, return to the pasture, so everyone wanted to talk to me. After we escaped, Kathryn said she had to run back to her apartment to make sure her rice cooker hadn't burned the place down. End result: no further progress.

SIDEBAR

Kathryn's refusal of communion impressed me deeply. There are plenty of people who would have taken the trays and shared communion whether or not they were Christian just to keep up appearances. Kathryn's refusal shows me that she respects our beliefs enough not to put up a charade and partake of something that, so far, means nothing to her. I wish all people were as honest and conscientious.

END SIDEBAR

As we were waiting for an appointment with a camera seller later that afternoon Yizong asked me if I got her phone number. I confessed I hadn't. Yizong was incredulous. He thought it should have been easy for me to get it after the second meeting. The catch is the circumstances just weren't right. How many guys ask for a girl's number under her parents' noses, in church, while trying to escape the mini mob surrounding us?

Moreover, Kathryn and I still haven't really met. We are both engineers (according to Yizong) and incredibly shy. Neither she nor I have any idea what we're doing in the dating scene. Yizong says he'll try again, but I don't know where it will go from here. If something happens it'll be an incredible stroke of luck. I'm about to start second shift work, so all my nights just became occupied, and neither she nor I still really know if the other is interested in pursuing any kind of friendship or relationship. Stay tuned folks, this could be interesting!

Back in Arlington, Wishing I WAS Alone

Ok, there are times that I do want to be alone. Or at least away from certain people. I had a good time at Trinity's high school reunion this weekend, but I was staying at the parental units' house. I love the parental units, but there is a reason I moved out--I value my space. This weekend mother has to come down for some medical tests, and, that's right, you guessed it, they're staying with me. Guess I won't have a weekend this time around.

Family Reunion and Weekend Wrap Up

Ok, last official day of the weekend, and it was as busy as each day during this little sojourn to Lubbock. First, I didn't go to church. I thought about it and even looked up a few to see if I could find a church that advertised a singles group, but I couldn't quickly find a website with the desired info, and combined with the fluctuating schedule, I decided to just pack in the church thing until next weekend.

Mother's family reunion was this Sunday, and I wasn't looking forward to it at all. But I went anyway, if for nothing else just to make a token appearance and reset the counter on years absent. I must say I was surprised by what I found. My cousin from Oregon that had a family emergency ended up losing her husband last night, so my sympathies go out to her. My cousins from Maryland were there, and it's always nice to talk to them. But over and above that, there were some pretty cute girls wandering about the room. Too bad they're all family, even if I don't know them. Long story short I grabbed a plate, had lunch, and sat with the Marylanders and talked with them until I had to punch out and get things together to go back to the metromess.

Before I could do that, I had to make a stop at the house of the parents of my friend Casey. They wanted to see both me and our other friend from Allen, but she punched out yesterday, so I was all there was. C and I went by and talked for about a half hour until I returned to the parental units' house and packed my gear to go back to Arlington.

Packing wasn't as big a deal this time as Thursday, but I think that's because I was less hurried and it wasn't as hot. I got all my junk in and, after a couple of errands, I hit the road and made it back to Arlington. Right now I'm trying to get all my stuff sorted from the weekend and get pictures posted. Tomorrow I still have off, so I might just veg.