The Village Church and Park Cities Baptist Church

I visited two very different churches on the weekend of June 9-10. On Saturday evening I went to the Village Church in the Highland Village area of northwest Dallas. Of course, I thought of Hilary's book "It Takes a Village." Anyway, the Village Church meets corporately every weekend, and in several small groups during the week.

During the sermon, Pastor Matt Chandler talked about a recent Denton Baptist Association meeting he attended. And then he chuckled when he said something like "some of you are finding out for the first time that we're a Baptist church!" I thought, "Wow." A lot of young families are coming to this church, and don't even realize that it's Baptist. This is not a bad thing, really, because the people seem to know what the church and the gospel is all about. Matt emphasized some mission activities they were involved in during the past week. So they are definitely displaying the love of Christ in their community.

The music was wonderful: The praise team started with a country set of a couple of standard hymns that most everyone knew. The education minister made a funny comment at welcome time: Talking to their worship leader, he said, "Hey, that was country. We're going to have a talk this week." Everyone had a good laugh. After the welcome and announcements, they sang some slower worshipful songs, much like the second slow music sets we have in our early service. Following that, the sermon on Matthew 25 had the theme of using our talents: how much are we using our talents (skills, etc.) for the Lord? No invitation was given, but the pastor closed in a benediction prayer.

Lots of young families and students were here, along with several in their 40s and 50s. After the service, we all exited and were served coffee and a bag of chips. This wasn't your typical church coffee. This stuff was really good!

The next day I went to Park Cities Baptist Church. This congregation has been around since 1939, and is a well-established church. It reminded me of First Presbyterian Church, San Antonio, in its magnificent architecture. Also like FPC San Antonio, they had more morning traditional services than contemporary. Park Cities BC has two morning traditional services, and one contemporary service, while FPC San Antonio has three traditional services and one contemporary on Sunday mornings.

Anyway, Park Cities contemporary service looked and sounded very professional. It was in the "Great Hall" of the church; maybe that's their big fellowship hall. I don't know. Senior Pastor Jim Denison preached at this service, although he doesn't do so normally. Next, I went to their traditional service. They had a choir of about 40 people, along with an orchestra of about 18, including strings. This service is one of those "if it ain't in the hymnal, we ain't singing it" kind of services. Their choir anthem was lively and enjoyable; but the congregational singing was pretty slow. Those who know me understand that I like the tempos to be lively in the first music set of our traditional service. The offering was taken at the end, in response to the worship that took place, with a classical trumpet duet, accompanied by their wonderful-sounding pipe organ. Then we were dismissed in prayer.

I am so thankful that my church allows me to visit these congregations. I'm learning a lot and it's refreshing to be a participant, rather than the one who plans the service. And I'm so thankful for all the fine people who are doing the things I normally do back at my home church, FBC Wimberley!