World Revival Church

Over the weekend, we went to a new church. Revival historians may remember the Smithton Revival back in 199?. Well, that church relocated to KC after they outgrew their old space.

So I'm reading an article about a church having a real outpouring of the Holy Spirit and miracles and such... I google the address and it's about 4 miles away. Doh!

So off we go to World Revival Church. It was a Saturday night, and we arrived about 30 minutes early to try to get a decent seat.
When we walked in the door, an enthusiastic greeter in a suit held the door for us and had our names and a synopsis of our life stories before we made it to the foyer. This guy was fast.

We then sort of wandered through the lobby trying to pick up clues as to where childcare was. Another greeter snagged us, and another and another. If we were in a movie, it would be like when they sweep the camera around you really fast in a circle.

Before we knew it, we had given out our address and phone number. Then an enthusiastic youth worker walked us out to the children's building.

This 2 year old class makes ChuckECheese look lame. I mean, slides, ball pits, cave of wonders, whatever. The worker explained to us, "We have three hour services. We like to keep them busy." Toby (usually a bit of a leg-clinger) didn't even say goodbye. The baby class had a line... probably 10-15 walkers and Exersaucers, plus a sort of giant padded room/pen in which the diapered variety were cavorting with blocks and drool and so on. Bean was a little nervous but she stayed.

Kids 6 and up stay in the service, so we took R2 with us... The sanctuary is not huge in the number of people it seats, but it has about 40 foot ceilings, and just super cool design, as well as a crazy cool hanging screen... I can't explain it. It's a giant rectangular video screen that appears to be floating above the stage.

Worship services can be difficult for us sometimes, since that's what we do and all, and it's kind of like speaking someone else's language at first, especially since their worship leader was doing all original songs. Over to the side there is a lineup of maybe 10 backup singers, all beaming and doing wildly expressive arm movements. And then the big screen and it gets a little overstimulating... but these girls could walk out of there and do Broadway, easy.

I'm being quite snarky, but it was good... really sweet, friendly people, and genuine worship.

When the pastor got up, he talked just for a minute and then said "If you need healing, come NOW!"
People took off running... seriously, it was so compelling I almost tucked R2 and bolted up there. Really gave us an understanding of the Pool of Bethseda in the Bible. So we got Richy and moved up there pretty swiftly, and the pastor, Steve Gray came by and laid his hands on Richy, and held my hand.

Folks... I was shaking. I don't know if I've ever felt the presence of God like that. It was intense. He stayed with Richy and Richy for a while, asked his name and such. It was pretty wild up there with people falling out and healings happening, so we cleared out and went back to our chairs. R2 was poking his forehead for about 10 minutes afterwards... maybe he felt something in his brain, we don't know.

We were able to stay for a little of the message before baby church paged us... the Princess had had enough.

I went back Sunday morning. Richy was playing guitar at the HOP, so it was just me and R2 in the service. We had to leave again before they prayed for healing, but we are definitely going back. It was VERY cool.