Going up the road five miles to Turlock will provide you with many more other offerings for spiritual fulfillment; you're not likely to find it here.
Overall, a superficial, artificial gathering that has an aging congregation dying out; and what will happen to the church when the few wealthy farmers die and stop almost single-handedly supporting? Will this church exist in a decade? Questionable.
There is not professionalism, but they will mask that up with humor about how amateur things are, or blame you for not understanding that "the spirit leads us" to do things, like repeat parts of songs ad nauseam, which puts the poor tech people in a bind as they don't know where the song is going next.
Different components of the service are drawn out to be these huge productions (ex: communion, once the measly peasants are served, then the ushers have a grand show of it, before the pastor then gets it).
Week to week, it's questionable if anyone but omnipotent God would have a clue how long the service will run... It is a shocking time if they get out in an hour, but going to an hour and a half or more is not unheard of (and if you have an issue with that, see above: shame on you, for not understanding how the spirit moves in mysterious ways).
Sadly, that "shame on you" is the mindset and mentality that seems to be within those in positions of power of this church. They come to meetings or whatever with preconceived notions and expectations. If they ask a question, don't put much thought into your answer because it will be ignored as they already know what they are going to do and want to do, but just are going through the motions of asking about your thoughts. If you voice a challenge or issue, you will be told that the church isn't just for you, so you better suck it up and deal with it. I suppose a peasant such as myself just isn't on God's level so I am not able to understand where this church's pastor and council thought process has been or is going.
Besides growing up and feeling like I was the sole representative of my age group, when there would be others in the church who wanted to step up and see about growing a youth group, they were slapped down and ended up being kicked out of the church. Obviously they were too peasant-like and didn't understand how the spirit moved better without a high school group, or college group, or young adult group. No, the sole focus is on the "worship" (read: singing) and kids groups.
For improvement, I would recommend Pastor Casey change his sermon style to not ramble on about his out of control kids and their antics (ha, ha, so sweet, so cute, right? ... Uh, no.) before droning on about random topics as he jumps around, leading people to doze off, or daze off while supposedly getting a powerful message of God directing Casey's words. The congregation has been scolded before, also, that they need to suck it up and love Casey's sermons. Casey has explained his style is to go around and build up to his main point that he will repeat two or three times at the end of the sermon. By then who is paying attention? People are just checking their watches, wondering how much longer it will drag on. As many sermons will talk about his going through seminary and his horrific, evil actions against other people--his "humor" and "pranks" would be emotionally scaring to a child version of me, were I to have been subjected to what he laughs off of his past.
Finally, acknowledging that the church is the people and not the building, and therefore is more than just a time on Sunday mornings, there are some events throughout the week... mainly for kids. During Sundays, though, there will be frequent times when you will be told/scolded/or tried to be guilted into "do more" or "do your part" and so no matter how much you participate or volunteer, that's not good enough--you should do more to help this frail, dying church. Also, give more money. Always. (The congregation to staff ratio is crazy and as noted above, people wanting to step up and help aren't good enough and will be kicked out of the church, so then they will have to pay money to hire family members of the staff to actually do the job the "Right" way.) read more
