I find it funny that people frequently ask me how our church differs from other churches around the valley. They want my opinion on the way we compare with other fellowships. The funny part is that I don't know. I always have to say that I've never attended any of the other churches in town! Most of our regular attenders have been around the block, but pastors seldom get the chance to visit other churches and see what God is doing elsewhere. I think I've only attended four churches in the last four years, and they have all been far from the Willamette Valley. But last week I snuck away to scout out the biggest church I know of in our region. In this week's installment of my Messages About Purpose and Strategy, I'll note an interesting observation I made during my reconnaissance mission.

Annie and I were all eyes and ears as we parked in the massive parking lot of a mega church north of here. We felt like spies, investigating the strategies this huge church employs to accomplish its purpose.

I could document a dozen observations, but the one that stuck out the most to us was the similarity of their worship band to what we do here. Whether we compared style, tempo, instrumentalists, vocalists, volume, quality, song selection, transitions, clothing, or just general sound, their band seemed so similar to the experience here at Dayspring that you could interchange them and I wonder if anyone would notice.

If the size of a church says something about success (another topic entirely), then the amazing similarity between the mega-church's chosen worship style and ours lets us know that we are doing something very significantly right!