Hangin’ In Michiana
After spending the day with Brooke and staying at Megan’s aunt and uncles yesterday, we woke up and went to church at Granger this morning. It was a great experience. Very inspiring on a personal level as well as from a ministry standpoint. The word that comes to mind is authentic. Even though I had never been there before, it felt familiar because I have spent time on their website and I keep up on their staff members blogs. The message and the expectations that I had because of my online experience matched right up with what it felt like to be on campus. Their senior pastor wasn’t there which was a bit of a bummer. But the guy that spoke was great. The message wasn’t fluff at all…go to the Granger website this week to watch the service.
After the service at Granger we made the drive to Grand Rapids. It was snowing quite a bit today, so it made for a dreary drive. We checked into our hotel and a few hours later went to Mars Hill for the 6 PM service. We had a little trouble finding the church partially due to some confusing directions from Google Maps and partially due to a lack of signage at Mars Hill. It’s a very different experience than Granger. The parking lot was a free for all because of all the snow. Once we parked and got out of the car we still weren’t sure where to go. I knew it was in a mall, but I always thought they were the only thing in the mall, so the YMCA and restaurant threw me off. We followed the stream of people and found our way in. The service was good and it was cool to experience a set-up with the stage in the middle. You could really hear everyone sing because of the set-up. Rob’s teaching was interesting as always and then he interviewed a lady that is doing work in an underpriviledged neighborhood. It was awesome to hear the things that are happening there. When Rob took the stage he had everyone stand that was there because of the conference and there was a surprising number of people. Then he asked people where they are from and people are here from all over the world. People from Kenya and Switzerland and a bunch of other places. I never expected people from that far away to come to Michigan for a 2 day conference.
I’m really looking forward to the sessions tomorrow. But I will say that Grand Rapids is kind of a depressing place so far. The dreary weather doesn’t help, but the town kind of makes me feel like I’m in Pekin.
if you get a chance, go downtown. all the buildings are attached via skywalk.
and there is one really cool restaurant with 4 different restaurants inside it. and some other cool places.
but, yeah… that’s basically it. people go out to eat for fun. that’s sooooo pekin.