[berettafan]

i'll just tell you my experience on this.

brought up s. baptist. best friend was a pk in our church. the pastor and his family were a second family to me. they were/are fantastic people. Pastor is a Naval acadamy graduate that likes baseball, Tom Clancy and good food. all was fine for many years. then services started changing rapidly to what is called 'praise music' formatting (i call it 'prelude to a kool aide festival music') and, quite frankly, an odd sort started taking over the church (ie planning events, directing bible studies, selecting music style and length, directing spending, etc) and i got totally uncomfortable. Showy prayers, hands in the air during songs, claimed divine direction on absolutely inane stuff, etc. became much more prevalent and, IMO, was evidence of a very selfish 'look at me' religous tendancy. I found it disgusting. Church USED to be about the message. Now it's a performance and a bad one at that.

so we've been looking around a bit (IMO drums and guitars don't belong in church-because the music SUCKS! i'd be a bit more comfortable if it were GOOD music but modern 'christian' music has always sucked and always will) for a more traditional church that preaches from the Bible only (a s. baptist strong suit) and doesn't look like a teeny-bopper concert and will likely end up at the local non-denominational church which appears to be growing very rapidly (as other kool-aide-esque churches pop up in the area).