the immanuel guarantee

last week (i think?) hillary introduced me to one of my new favorite spots in nashville, radnor lake. the weather has been beautiful the past week, so i'm happy to have somewhere wonderful like radnor to enjoy a little bit of outdoors. after church today i went home to eat lunch and change and then headed off to first go to radnor and then to borders to hang out for a bit. when i got to the lake i decided to go a little bit later - there was a line to get into the parking lot...and it wasn't moving. so now here i am at borders sipping a delicious unsweetened tea with lemon from mcalister's. not a bad sunday afternoon if you ask me.

this morning i went to immanuel church for the first time and can't say enough good things about it. finding a new church can be a long and exhausting process, especially when there are a lot of great churches in your area to choose from. since getting to nashville i've been around to a few different churches and really liked them all. every one of them have good, solid teaching and great ways of getting new people plugged in. i can't say any of the places i've been are better than the other, which made it especially hard to think about calling one of them home.

i've read the pastor's blog at immanuel for a month or two now and really liked him, but i didn't know what to expect, service-wise. i snuck into the back no more than 5 minutes late (check me out!)and was immediately intrigued. dr. ortlund was in the middle of answering a question from someone there - i have no idea if they do this every week, if he just asked if anybody wanted to ask anything, or what. but i thought it was cool.

after that was the part where they greet you and they ask who is attending for the first time, show of hands. i NEVER raise my hand because i hate drawing attention to myself. i sat in the back and looked around. then i heard "guy right there, first hand up, we have a book and a starbucks gift card for you!" then i was regretting not shooting my hand up in the air. however, then i heard "if it's your first time here we have a book and a starbucks card for you, hold your hand up until someone brings one to you." um, AWESOME! about 10ish people had their hands up, including the two people sitting directly in front of me. i'm glad i didn't know what was to follow, i may have passed up a free book and cup of coffee if i had. everybody that had their hand up got to introduce themselves...out loud, to everybody there. it wasn't quite as scary as i thought it would be. on their website is posted the "immanuel guarantee": nobody needs to feel new after their first visit. i was wondering how they could go so far as to guarantee that, and just how they would accomplish it. well, guarantee accomplished.

right away, i felt like i belonged, something i have sorely missed since living in tuscaloosa and attending trinity. several times throughout the rest of the service my eyes welled up with tears that i had to fight back because i finally felt a bit at home. even as i now sit and type this in borders i'm breathing deeply through my nose and have glassy eyes.

during the song that followed i was so excited about my free book that i couldn't wait until home to see what it was. i got even MORE excited when i saw the words "john piper" appear letter by letter as i tore a strip of paper from across the bottom. i am now the happy owner of "fifty reasons why jesus came to die."

so there i sit when the song is over admiring my new book by one of my favorite authors when it is announced that collin hansen is visiting immanuel today. i did a little "oooh!" out loud and then whisper "young, restless, reformed!" which is the title of hansen's book. it happens to be a favorite of mine. after the service i dorkily went up to him and his wife and told him how much i loved it and shook his hand. it was stinking thrilling.

the sermon topic today was "proverbs on emotions" and i very much enjoyed it. we are emotional creatures, especially women. i feel like it's not okay for people to be overly emotional these days - even if you're too happy you're criticized, and you definitely are if you have the audacity to go around crying in front people and showing how you really feel. it's part of the problem with the "american church" - having everything together all the time is a must.

dr. ortlund said that the gospel is emotional, and when christ comes to us we are an emotional jungle and he's not about to turn us into an emotional desert. then he talked through four different categories, each using verses from proverbs for context. it'll be way too lengthy to go through them, but they were:
1. fear and boldness
2. anger and restraint
3. jealousy and trainquility
4. cheerfulness and the gospel

at the end he said that god's power is greatest not in destroying sinners, but by freeing them. then he asked us to think about our darkest, most shameful sins. after pausing for a few seconds he said "that is what you are, and that is what god saves."

all in all, i absolutely loved the entire experience. i called my mom and told her i think i just went to my new church. then i told hillary i went and "am in love with it." then i said "that may be stretch since we've only been out once, but we're courting." i've decided to attend immanuel until i feel the need or desire to look elsewhere. i feel like there are two crucial points that i can make to show how great i thought it was:

1. i had to say my name in front of everybody and i still want to go back.
2. there were cute guys there, but really i wasn't concerned with them. obviously i noticed and thought "oh, he's cute" but that was the end of it because my focus was on the church. when you're a single girl in your 20's and are more taken by a church than a guy, you know you're at a good church. i'm gonna go out on a limb and say the lord had something to do with that - maybe offering a little contentment and peace to my heart? i was very grateful that i wasn't distracted.

next week i'm going to attend a community group before the worship service. i was too scared to go by myself today, but after leaving i wish i had gone. they split them up by ages, which makes me very happy since hillary, tori and i still haven't made many friends since moving to nashville.

one of the last things dr. ortlund said before the benediction was "yall are going to have a great week, i can tell!" and i thought "you couldn't be more right!" my time at immanuel today blessed my heart too much to put into words and i am praying that it will continue to bless me throughout the rest of the week.

thanks for reading! i'm off to radnor to hopefully spend some time outside in the gorgeous weather!

-meghan