I was all set to visit Grace Church in Orlando. My GPS got me very efficiently, effectively, and quickly to the address that I found on Sovereign Grace Ministries’ web site. Unfortunately, it was the pastor’s home address, and not the school where the church meets. Oops.
Fortunately, the pastor lives a short distance from the church, and my PDA has Internet access, so I was only about 20 minutes late by the time I got the right address figured out. Guest parking is a wonderful thing, by the way.
I ended up missing all but the very last song (they follow the Cov. Life order of worship, putting all the music up front, doing a greeting, announcements, sermon, end), but I got to hear a good sermon on Isaiah 40 and the size of God. It’s really nice not being distracted at all by the sound system, which is never the case at VBC (since I’m in charge of it) and CRC (since I assembled it). They should turn down the gain on the wireless mic for the pastor, I think (it seemed a few times like the compander was working too hard), and they had a little bit of feedback, but that was all minor.
Grace Church seems to be just a little smaller than CRC is right now. It’s a very young church — when the kids were dismissed to children’s church, about two thirds of the room left. Very few gray-haired people were there. Which, I suppose, is normal for a new church plant. I’m not sure how old they are, but their Internet domain was only registered less than two years ago. They seem to be pretty well connected with their parent church, which is also in Orlando, though without being a satellite campus.
Now I’m back at the hotel, wondering when it’s safe to call someone on a Sunday morning who goes to church. I’m thinking 12:30 is probably fairly safe, so 15 more minutes ‘til I figure out whether or not I’m joining him for lunch. :-)
