The Church, Part 3

The Transitional Church

We heard about Temple Hills Baptist Church from one of the pastors at the church plant we visited in Northwest DC (Restoration Church). It’s not in our immediate neighborhood, but it’s in the nearby community of Temple Hills, MD, about a ten-minute drive from our house. We visited for the first time on Sunday, February 9. When we entered the traditional old church building, we were greeted and directed to the children’s area to drop off the kids. Then we made our way to the bright-red-carpeted, 60s-era sanctuary, where several other members greeted us and one offered us welcome gifts. The pastor came in, and we met him before the service started. As in the other churches we had visited, everyone was warm and friendly.

After announcements, the worship music began, just piano and voice, reverent, simple, and pretty. We sang for about twenty minutes, had scripture reading and prayer, and then heard the sermon. The pastor was beginning a series on 1 Timothy and took us verse by verse through the first section of Chapter 1. It was an excellent expositional message on protecting and preserving the “glorious gospel” as Paul calls it in verse 11. The sermon reminded me of the way Harvey preaches, so of course I was impressed. We spent a while after the service visiting with a few people, and then we rounded up the kids and headed to lunch. We felt blessed to have been there, and we’ve been back twice since then.

Temple Hills is small and rough around the edges. Even the pastor in Sunday School a couple weeks ago admitted, “This is not a pretty church.” But our beliefs about God, the Word, faith, evangelism, and missions all align with the theirs. They are multicultural (like our family), and they're working toward being the kind of church we were working toward being at Calvary. According to the pastor, they've been struggling to grow over the past several years, but very recently, new people have been visiting and joining, people who are passionate about their faith and service. If we choose THBC, we can join and hopefully enhance their missions efforts and serve in their areas of need alongside likeminded believers. At this point, we believe God is leading us there. We are taking steps toward membership, and we are excited. Now we'll see if they let us in.

www.thbchurch.org