Lancaster Evangelical Free Church (Lititz)
I was really missing NewSong after being five weeks away -- but today was a winner all the way around! What a wonderful morning I had visiting LEFC and Pastor Doug Winne. LEFC is significant for a number of reasons to me, but most importantly is they stood with me and our elders in 1998 when we began to start NewSong. This was the first time ever visiting and I am so glad I did. First, LEFC has people stationed from the parking lot to the auditorium to greet and welcome you. What a tremendous tone that sets for the morning. The worship was excellent. Andy Martin the worship pastor has a sweet spirit and does a great job facilitating the corporate worship. One note, they were singing a new song this morning and worship team came out right away and sang it for the congregation and the words up on the screen getting us use to it. When it was our turn, we were able to sing with confidence. The focus of the morning was love in the body and although the songs were not exclusively about that theme, most of the songs pointed your mind in that way. We sang mostly up tempo choruses but all with spirit-minded, God honoring feel. Kuddos to the worship team, one of the best I have seen on my tour. It followed with a brief announcement about their VBS – tis the season!! Then came the message - Pastor Doug has been preaching on the church and today started looking at LEFC’s core values. Doug has been with the church 25 years and shared a story about conducting a man’s funeral this week who had introduced him to the church. In one sense, it had nothing to do with the message. On the other, it had everything to do with love, because Doug was able to share from his heart what this man meant to him, and most importantly how God used him to get Doug to Lancaster. His message was out of Acts 2 and John 13 and the importance of love in the church. His points - Love is a commitment to each other; Love is self sacrificing and love is warm and fuzzy! Strange outline but very effective. One thing I will not forget was a quote from one of Doug’s professors, Jay Adams. When it is hard to love, Adams says “Just Do IT!!” Adams added – “Actions precedes attitude!” AMEN!! How refreshing to hear that kind of statement in this post-modern/emergent church era; when today’s prophets would say “showing love without the right heart is hypocritical.” Look sometimes we need to show love when I don’t FEEL like it! He finished his message and the worship team led the church in a song from the movie “Gospel” – “I need you to survive.” What a powerful song and what a way to end a service – very moving!! Doug asked the Elders and Deacons to come to the front and link hands as they sang! I thought the service was over and started walking up to say hi to Doug, when the Missions Pastor invited all the summer teams up for a commissioning. They have a number of summer short term teams. Much like NewSong and very encouraging. It was just one more thing that lifted my spirit about LEFC. I was so encouraged with this church. One last thought – I really appreciated that LEFC doesn’t try to be “slick.” That authenticity goes a long way!
Grace Brethren Church Lititz
So I have a problem…after visiting Grace and LEFC I have two churches in Lititz to recommend people to go to. Grace Church (they have dropped the Brethren) is lead by Pastor Scott Distler and is doing a great job with this flock. Grace was pastored by Jerry Young for 30+ years and Scott came about three years ago. Scott has an evangelist’s heart and it is very evident. The service has a real “seeker church” feel to it. But I was thrilled by the thoroughly Biblical based message. The service began with an excellent worship package. Very upbeat and contemporary. They had a tight rhythm section with a sax player, who I discovered later was their youth pastor. After the worship time, the youth guy introduced the message by using a movie clip from “Mr. and Mrs. Smith” starring Brad-gelina! The series is entitled – “Reel Families” – they are looking at marriage and family relationships and using movies to introduce each message. This is very effective and again indicative of the seeker formula for success. After the clip, the worship team did a special number/worship song. I was not sure which it was and whether we were to sing along or not. Scott was up next, his message was from 1 Peter 3 – “Why don’t Husbands’ Prayers Get Answered?” He did a good job explaining the text and highlighting the fact that wives are a “weaker vessel.” I know there are different interpretations of this text, especially in light of the context and previously passage where Peter is discussing believing husbands who have strayed from the faith and how the wife is to bring him back. But I like how Scott handle it – noting that a wife is to be seen as a valuable, fragile vessel. To illustrate it he was handling a white and blue vase. He told everyone that it was a valuable vessel and described how husbands handle it. After a while he was tossing it around and then he let it crash to the floor (obviously not a valuable vessel, huh?). The illustration was powerful. He finished the message looking at six ways to treat your wife from the last part of the text. One downer – to illustrate the idea of kindhearted he said that in Middle Eastern cultural the seat of the emotions was not the heart but the bowel. For humor he said what if some of the popular love songs that we sing replaced heart with bowel. Such as “I left my BOWEL in San Francisco” and Toni Braxton’s “Unleash my BOWEL!” It was funny by him saying it, but the worship band came up and played those and other songs replacing heart with bowel. I don’t think it was necessary and it distracted me. However, they are a creative bunch at Grace! He finished the message giving an opportunity for any person who feels their lives need to be put back together to be prayed for and to stand. This is where you see Scott’s evangelist’s heart. They finished the morning with song and dismissed. Again, I have nothing but good things to say about Grace and LEFC. If lived in the northern part of the county, it would be a hard choice which one I would attend.