The Church: Family Worship Center
Location: 1503 Sulphur Springs Rd.
Pastor: Brian Hughes
Service Times: Sunday Services: 8:30 a.m., 11a.m., 6 p.m. Connection Groups: 10 a.m.; Wednesday Nights: 7 p.m.
Online: familywc.com
Rating (1 – 5): Message?2.5; Music?3; Brotherly Love?0.5; Overall?2
I attended the Family Worship Center on the day they celebrated the success of “The Judgment,” a drama presented there as an alternative to Halloween haunted houses. Over 4,200 attended and 439 people made decisions for Christ during the run of the show. As Pastor Brian Hughes declared, “We are in the soul winning business!”
Appropriately, Pastor Hughes’ sermon was “The Devil’s Devices: Doubt, Distraction and Despondency.” The primary scripture reading came from Matthew 4:1-11, the temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness. Pastor Hughes confessed that he doesn’t usually preach on the “Master Masquerader,” but that we must not forget that the Devil is always here attempting to bring us down, i.e. Eve, Job, David (and The Rolling Stones).
Fortunately for us, “God has to reach down to the guttermost to bring us to the uttermost” declared Pastor Hughes. At the end of the service were two alter calls and several baptisms.
The worship music was contemporary and the praise team was led by an enthusiastic Pastor Greg Lemley. I was, however, disconcerted by the psychedelic visuals that ran behind the projected lyrics. I flashed back to late nights staring at the visuals on my iTunes.
By far, I was most disappointed by the “Get Out the Vote” video which was thinly veiled anti-choice (pro-life) and anti-homosexual (pro-family) propaganda. Fortunately, it ended with the encouragement: “Seek God’s Wisdom.”
Obviously, though, the Family Worship Center is a thriving community of faith with those from many ages and backgrounds, but yet again a single male in worship did not receive many welcomes when Pastor Lemley encouraged us to “Say hello to someone you don’t know.”
Also, I’m not used to being in church over two hours and it was all I could do to restrain myself from angrily telling the teen-aged boy next to me to stop texting every 90 seconds.
