Harvest Christian Fellowship

August 12, 2007

During our church search we felt like looking at church's in Plainview might be a good option for us. It makes more sense to worship there, since I work in Plainview and would be more able to participate in activities throughout the week and could make some good friends right there in town. We decided to try Harvest on a recommendation or two, though we weren't quite sure if we'd chosen the right place or not. We have some good friends here in Abernathy who told us they attended a Harvest church in Plainview and one of the partners in my business also told me about the Harvest church he attended. When we started looking online Saturday night to get the meeting times, we discovered there are 2 Harvest churches in Plainview - Harvest Christian Fellowship and Family Harvest Church! What to do? It was late Saturday night and we didn't feel like waking anyone up over our dilema, so we chose Harvest Christian Fellowship and went for it!

Harvest meets in a non-descript building in the center of Plainview. I have no idea what the building was originally, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't designed as a church. It's low and stucco and has pretty trees along the street. We parked in the parking lot out back (not in the "guest" parking, of course!) and headed for the door - a little concerned that there weren't too many cars there yet. The entrance was wide open on this sunny morning and two friendly people were propped against them greeting folks as we came in. The lobby was warm and inviting - it kind of felt like coming into someone's home, but in a commercial kind of way because it was big with stained concrete floors. We asked about the accomodations for Avery and the gentleman who greeted us was kind enough to leave his post and escort us around the building to the kids section.

As we walked, he showed us where everthing was - you know, the important stuff like the coffee bar and restrooms - but more impressively he introduced us to nearly everyone we passed. We me lots of folks our age, a very racially diverse group of folks, as we walked the long hall to the nursery. It was very homey - Jill really liked the throw rugs and conversation stations (otherwise called couches) along the way. The nursery attendants were very friendly and showed us the whole check-in routine, which seemed to be quite thorough. (After church, we realized that we'd forgotten to hand in the card they gave us to "claim" Avery so I returned it. The girls were visibly alarmed that they had allowed a child to go without the ticket! I thought that was pretty indicative of how seriously they take this!)

After dropping Avery, we meandered back to the coffee bar and loaded up before finding a place to sit in the worship room. It was a low ceiling room, actually it didn't have a ceiling - just open beams and air ducts painted black. The chairs were comfortable and portable - they could be easily reconfigured or moved to use the room for something else - and set-up in a big U around the stage. We found a seat and got ready to worship as the leader got up and welcomed us to Harvest. The band started their song and we were suddenly surprised from behind! Our friend from Abernathy, Jara Dubose, grabbed us and invited us to come sit with them - I think they came in late and happened to spot us across the room. It was such a relief to know someone! We really enjoyed the worship time as this church has pretty skilled musicians.

One thing I've noticed about many of the churches we visit is the number of songs we sing. I think the song service probably lasts the same amount of time a typical c of c service does, but there are usually only 2 or 3 songs. I really like this - a lot of other people don't. It means that there is a lot of repetition of the verses and chorus, which is how most new songs are written anyway. For me, this really helps me to get into the words and feel like I'm able to worship. The repetition allows me to think about the song, to sing it with heart, to enjoy offering it to God. Sometimes I feel like this means I'm a bit dense or slow. I just have a really hard time jumping into a song, singing the 2 or 3 verses and then jumping to another one. I need to let it sit, to let it simmer in my mind and at some point my mind is diverted by the repetition from whatever else it was doing to concentrate on the song. I don't know if that is a man thing or a Gabe thing, but either way I like singing the same song for 10 or 15 minutes. Call me crazy, I know...

After worship, we transistioned into commercials. That's right - commercials, not announcements. The staff had done a fabulous job of turning the boring announcements into a fun, lively, videographic (is that a word?) catchy experience. They were projected onto the screen and we watched them for 5 minutes or so. Is that a sign of the times or what? We can't sit and listen to a guy announcing stuff anymore - but our attention will stay glued to a TV screen with video images flashing by.

I'm sure there were other things during this part of the service, buts I guess they weren't significant enough to remember almost two months later. The founding pastor of the Harvest Fellowship group of churches did do the preaching that morning. He's a middle-aged guy with kids our age. He started the church a while back here in Plainview and that work has spread to several church plants over the years. I think there are "branch campuses" meeting in Lubbock, Amarillo, Seymour and Follett. He rotates around supporting the campus pastors of these churches and I think his preaching is sometimes broadcast via video to all the churches. His son-in-law is considered the Plainview Campus Pastor and has responsibility here all the time.

One of the exciting things our Abernathy friends told us is there are plans in the works to start a campus in Abernathy in the next year or two. They have a very deliberate process of getting a church planting team together, training and preparing for a plant that sounded pretty cool. So - maybe God has that in store so we can continue to worship right here in our community like we 've wanted to all along!

We enjoyed our experience at Harvest. It was one of the friendliest churches we've been to and it was obvious that the people there wanted to be there and expressed that during their worship. We love that and yearn for that so much. This was the early service and we were informed there were many more people at the late service so we vowed to return and experience that at a later date. More on that in another blog. One other fringe benefit to our visit - the partner in my business I mentioned came in and sat behind us and the financial manager from our office also attends church there. We have another couple friend from Abernathy who recently moved to Plainview and they also attend church here. We saw all them and it really felt good to know so many people from the get-go.

What a great journey we are on right now! God is good and will lead us where HE wants us to be!

If you'd like to visit the church's website, click http://www.harvestchristianfellowship.org/plainview.html .