1. Who attended? Bradley & Erica.
2. CHURCH HOP RANKINGS:
How welcome did you feel at this church?
1: I was so uncomfortable and/or offended that I did not stay to the end of services.
10: This church was welcoming and thought-provoking. I would recommend that others experience this church.
ERICA: 4.
BRADLEY: 4, the message really took it down.
3. Picture(s) of the church
4. Name/location of the church:
Solid Rock Church
904 N. Union Drive
Monroe, OH 45050
www.solidrockchurch.org
5. Was it recommended to Church Hop?
Yes! A bunch of readers have asked that we visit the church with Touchdown Jesus.
6. Time/duration of services:
9:00am--10:ooam.
7. What type of religion did the church cater to?
I'm not positive, but the church reminded me a lot of this one, so I'm going to guess that they're Baptist. If anyone wants to clear this up for me, feel free.
8. Who did you meet?
We went to the visitor center, where we exchanged our visitor cards for CDs of one of their sermons, but the friendly girl manning the booth seemed too busy to talk. There was a nice man near the center who asked us where we were from, but I didn't get his name.
9. If applicable, scans of handouts, tracts, etc
10. Church Hopper’s personal experience with the church, additional details:
ERICA: Happy anniversary, Church Hop! This year has been so eye-opening for me... so rewarding. In honor of our one year, Bradley and I decided to visit Solid Rock Church, famous for its giant King of Kings statue.
The megachurch itself is pretty amazing... huge and elaborate, easily navigable and clearly easy to find. We attended the early service, and the entire bottom floor was filled by the time it started... I'd guess that the 11:30 service is even fuller. We say in the balcony to get a good view of everything, and there weren't too many people up there.
The music was fanTASTIC. I was so excited to hear the full-blown gospel that they had, especially because that's something Bradley really likes. Everyone was standing and clapping the rhythm and singing along, so there was an amazing energy.
Unfortunately, this was one of those churches with beliefs very different from mine. (With a name like Solid Rock Church, I really had no expectations about what kind of belief system it had... though the giant Jesus might have given me an inkling.) I won't go into detail (I do listen to reader feedback, you know) but the sermon was very much like the First Baptist Church of Glen Este, so while the sermon was high-octane and passionate, I found myself emotionally tuning out the bulk of it.
As far as actually feeling welcome-- and that's the point of this, isn't it?-- they pulled the single-you-out-if-you're-new stuff that I'm not a huge fan of, but they were largely welcoming. They made it very clear that n00bs were welcome, they had a visitor center, information on the church, etc. Nothing else particularly caught my eye.
BRADLEY: First of all, let me start by saying something similar to Erica, and that is, we finally got to visit the Touch Down Jesus Church. For the visiters of I-275, it's a real treat to see that giant Jesus lighting up the way. (FYI, there is a theater behind him) Now I can brag to all those of the Facebook group saying "I've seen the big butter Jesus"
Enought about that.
Well this church started off grEAt. (as Tony the Tiger would put it) When we finally found a spot to park, and went inside, I was blown away at how large it was. Erica told me the website said it had around 3000 members, I can see how. But regardless of the size, this church still looked amazing. The stage was huge, and there was a giant neon blue (neon light, not neon colored paint) dove on the ceiling. Erica and I took seats right above the tech-booth. I love me a good tech booth.
Like I said, the music blew me away how good it was. They had a lot of spirit, and a whole lot of talent. The lead vocalist was really givin' it his all, and the choir behind him totally backing him up with the kind of sound only a large church congregation could make. The music was totally worth the trip.
But then came the speaker.
Let me first start off with saying he was a good speaker, in the sense of his actual speaking ability. His voice was a little raspy, in the good kind of way, the kind that holds your attention, and he would start to build up his sentaces when he talked, and got people excited with a large "AMEN". But the message was less than desirable to me. It just really disagreed with what I believe personally, because of so many things he mentioned, mostly to do with abortion, gay rights and George Bush.
So all in all, the music was some of the best I've heard yet, but the message really hurt my view of this church.
(note: my spelling is a little bad, I'm not using the grammer correcting Firefox, but rather IE)
