Church #29: Full Gospel Assembly (Loveland)

1. Who attended? Bradley and Erica.

2. How welcome did you feel at this church?

ERICA: 7.
BRADLEY: 5, for it's length

3. Pictures of the church: Okay, I screwed up this week. I only remembered one picture this time, and I'm lucky even to have that. AND the church doesn't have a website so I can't steal one. Use your imagination. It looked like a church.

4. Name/location of the church:
Full Gospel Assembly
11850 Lebanon Road
Loveland, Ohio 45140

5. Was it recommended to Church Hop? No, it's on our way to our grandmother's.

6. Time/duration of services: 10:45am until somewhere near 1pm.

7. What type of religion does the church cater to? Um. Even Wikipedia was clueless on this one-- can anyone lend a land here? It was Christian... that's all I have for ya.

8. Who did you meet? Okay, this is why I usually write responses on Sunday, right after services. There was one woman who was exceedingly welcoming and nice... I believe her name was Cindy.

9. If applicable, scans of tracts/handouts/etc. We never got a program and we couldn't find one on the way out. Nothin' doing.

10. Church Hoppers' personal experience with the church, additional details:

ERICA: As you can see, I dropped the ball on this one. I forgot to take a picture, which must have been bad luck from the beginning. We couldn't find a handout, either, and there's no website. So I'm not a lot of help this week.

Full Gospel Assembly was... interesting. A heavy focus on music-- and I was astounded to see so much GOOD music. Seriously. We started off with one hymn, all together, and then we were told we could sit. After that was a full hour of various churchy duets, solos, full band numbers... you name it. There were guitar solos, multiple keyboards/pianos, and soloists-- mostly older woman-- who can seriously belt out a note. It was really quite dumbfounding.

Unfortunately, the sermon completely lost me. It was the driest to date, and probably the longest. It was very teach-y, speaking to specific scripture and elaborating on what it meant-- like an adult Sunday school, but I believe their actual Bible study was at a different time. (By which I mean that I don't think we accidentally stumbled into an actual adult Sunday school, though I know they exist.) Here's the thing, though-- I seemed to be the only person having a hard time paying attention. Most everyone else sat there attentively, for which I commend them. Maybe it's an acquired taste, but I did not enjoy it.

So the church balanced out for me. I really loved the first hour but the second one left me uninspired (though I honestly tried to listen and take it in) and unaffected.

Brad: Well, Erica and I visited another very, very long church.

When we first got there, we saw that their weren't a lot of people at this church. We had to wait in the car a few minutes before we saw where everyone else was going in. Upon entering, I saw the normal things-people greeting other people in the lobby. The previous service was still running, so sis and I just walked around until things were ready. We came in, and the band was setting up on the huge stage. The church looked very nice, and clean too.

The beginning was ok, although I still have to mention how long it was. I was waiting for us to sit down, but after every song somebody would lead us into a prayer. It all took so long before the sermon, it really made me loose interest, despite by best efforts to keep up with it. There was a lot to take in too, the band was amazing, but overall overpowering.

Then came the sermon, which I found a little dry for my taste. I guess the preacher gave a more "classic" style sermon, because he went on to quote, then define a scriptural passage.

All in all, with the exception of it's length, this wasn't a bad church.