Holy moley

What does any self respecting man in Naples do on a Sunday morning ? He goes to church of course ! Now. But for funerals, weddings, and christenings I have not been to church of my own accord since I was last in Fiji about 4 years ago and that was ostensibly to listen to the harmonic singing. Prior to that it was in Tonga for the same reasons and prior to that I was a 5ft midget at school attending a Higher Church of England service complete with incense and a 1 hour sermon in 1982.

Intrigued as I'am about the fabric that makes up this society I decided to try and attend church today as it is my flying instructors day off and so therefore mine as well. I googled '' Churches in Naples Florida '' and came across the First Baptist Church of Naples ( http://www.fbcn.org/  )

A good friend who is an infrequent attendee at the FBCN informed me that it was quite evangelical and therefore right up my Strasse in what I thought would be good entertainment. I chose the 9.30am worship figuring that as there was a 11am worship the 9.30 should be done within an hour and 15 mins. I was right.  The Church itself is actually a massive complex with different wings of the buliding holding rooms/areas for bilble study/musicical worship/children's worship etc etc. The car park not too dissimilar in size to that you see at a small sports stadium. The main ''Worship'' area itself is an impressive  arena that by my estimations ( counting rows and seats ) could seat about 2,500 people. The ''stage '' accomodated a 60 strong choir and what looked like an orchestra band. On either side were 4 very large screens from which I discovered the sermon and the hymns were projected onto. The entire room was not unlike any large seminar room or even small rock concert auditorium you may have been to. Not a stained glass window to be seen. In fact not a window at all come to think of it.

 Check it out below

The weekend note book informed that last weekend there were 1,117 attendees to the Saturday evening sermon. 1,580 to the Sunday 9.30am sermon and a paltry 923 to the Sunday morning 11am sermon. The notes also tell me that the budget for July 1 to November 7 is 2.3 million USD and actuals are 2.1 million USD so there was me thinking they are running a prudent worshipping ship. Ah no. I gaze to the bottom of the financials and I discover that all this preaching is an expensive vocation. Debt balance as of November 7 was a not to be sneezed at..11,228,148 USD. Yup you read right. 11.2 million USD in debt. Little wonder then they were trying to flog me a DVD of my service to me post sermon for a mere $4.99.

The order of service was as follows.

1. An out of tune child choir kept us amused until the Pastor arrives and we watch video of the Collins family in Blackburn, Melbourne who talk about their missionary work of giving gifts to....wait for it....to the children of the Papua New Guinea highlands. This comes with footage from PNG. Scary coincidence I thought. I choose the one church in Naples Florida with a video clip from Australia about PNG.
2. Pastor arrives dressed in charcol grey suit with white shirt and bright yellow tie accompanied by choirmaster similarily dressed.
3. Choirmaster leads 60 strong choir in 2 warm up songs. Only slightly more in tune than the kids.
4. Choirmaster then leads congregation with plenty of hand gesticulation pointing to the heavens as we sing 3 songs. Way worse than the kids.
5. Pastor takes stage and commences his preaching.
6. Pastor breaks from preaching to allow us to watch skype video clip from an American family in Naples, Italy who talk about the '' vice like grip that satan has on this town and the darkness he has cast over the people here '' and their attempt to loosen that grip and bring light to the people of Italy. I started to wonder if the Pope had watched the same video and what his thoughts would be.
7. We then kneel and pray for the family in Naples, Italy
8. Pastor spends 25 mins talking about the need to be useful in life and again we pray for ourselves and for the great Lord to give us the fortitude to be his servants.
9. We sing another song
10. We sing another song
11. We sing another song.
12. Pastor then concludes sermon and .....

yup you guessed right.

13. We sing another song with the Pastor encouraging us to hold the hands of the people next to us, which I do. At the conclusion we all raise our arms (still holding hands) skywards and give thanks to the Lord.

It was an interesting and well spent 75 minutes.

I think.

p.s. Two more banks.

News Bank
Regions Bank