Going to Church

Disclaimer: I like church. I like going to church. This is no way indicative of my faith or my feelings about church.

When I first got to Vegas, my friend Monica took the day and showed me around the city. One of the places she took me was to her church, which she highly recommended. When we visited the area, however, it was a Saturday afternoon so there was very little activity. I remember thinking "This is not Second Baptist. Don't got to Second Baptist." Since I only noticed two churches in the area, I thought finding my way back to Monica's church would be fairly easy. I mean, I was a girl scout; I have stellar navigational skills, right?

Wrong.

Today I was invited to church by Monica. I really wanted to go and praise, especially since I have been continously blessed since I've been here. Well, first I got lost coming off the freeway. But, I've been lost enough times to navigate back to where I should be, so I used my Scooby Sense to find the neighborhood where her church was located. When I found the neighborhood, I realized immediately that I was in big trouble. When Monica first took me to the area, there were only two churches: Second Baptist (where I should not go) and her church, which I remembered as Not Second Baptist.

However, at 11:00 on Sunday morning, another thirty churches popped up from nowhere. Suddenly there was a pentacostal church, a COGIC, an Apolostic church and several other houses of worship that were not there last week.

So, I called Monica. Being a good Christian, she did not answer because she had her cell off in the house of the Lord.

After driving around the same patch of land for 15 minutes, I decided to just pick a church.

So I did: Church X. (That's not the name, but I want to protect the identity of the innocent)

I picked Church X because it was a Baptist church (I'm Baptist, Monica's Baptist and I took a stab in the dark that it was her church) it was a large building and there was very very loud music filtering from the building and into the street. Based on the sound and the size, I was sure there were at least 400 people inside.

I opened the door. An usher noticed me immediately and took me to the sanctuary. There were 14 people inside. Monica was not one of them.

So, not knowing how to leave gracefully, I took a seat. The choir then got up to sing. Both of them. The choir shouted songs at the audience, using a sound system for several hundred people. I got a headache. Then, someone got up to welcome any visitors (mind you, I"m number 15 in the entire building).When asked if there were any visitors in the room, I heard a loud whoosh as all the heads turned in unison and looked at me. My cover was blown.

The highlight of my morning, however, was the pastor. Now, in all fairness, my mom says that even a dead clock is right two times a day and he did say a few things that piqued my interest. But, overall, this was the best smoke and mirrors, tap dance and bojangle minstrel show I've ever seen. The pastor shouted. He screamed. He yelled. He sweated and wiped his brow. He danced down the aisle. He bent over backwards. He sang (loudly and off key) during the middle of his speech. He used the following words and phrases at least once: "humpty dumpty" and "what the hell is wrong with you." He gave a riveting speech on the meaning of the word "but." (Which, by the way, in case you were wondering, means that something different is going to happen.) But the oddest part was that about halfway through, I noticed that whenever he spoke, the organ/pianist would strike a chord that parroted back exactly what he had just said. My headache grew.

Is everything in Vegas a show?