The Flood

On Sunday morning, I visited The Flood Church in San Diego. The church meets at a high school auditorium and is near UCSD. I had heard good things about this church from a few of our previous high school students that had gone off to school in that area and attended The Flood. I have to admit, when I first got there and looked around, I felt a bit old. I was surrounded by college age students and young adults. The church has to haul in their stuff every weekend so their set-up was basic, but well put-together. They added a few props on stage that related to their current series (Outside In) and added a few lights and a kicking sound system. I felt like I was at NC because when the service first started, there auditorium was only half full, but within 15 minutes it had filled up. The lights went down when the service started and the worship leader read a couple verses out of the bible and then went straight into a song. Although the auditorium was dark and the music loud, it didn't feel like a show. I was deeply impressed with the authenticity of those leading the music and their genuine desire to worship our Creator. After a couple of songs and some announcements, Matt (their lead pastor) got up to speak. As mentioned before, they were starting a new series that addressed how to experience God's grace through the seven sacraments. The sacrament they were studying that morning was baptism. It turned out to be a biblically sound and inspiring message. They ended up inviting people that hadn't been baptized to follow Christ's example. There were 3 people in that service that went down and after some brief instructions during some response songs, they were given the opportunity to share their testimony, answer a couple of questions and then get baptized right there on the spot. After the service, I saw many students hanging around talking to each other. Even though they were meeting in a rented facility, they seemed to have found a way to facilitate "community". I came away inspired and with some ideas to think about. What about you... I realize most of you haven't been to The Flood, but I would love to hear what you think about a couple of things. Is it healthy to have a church made up mostly of one age group? If not how can this be successfully achieved? Also, what do you think about spontaneous baptism? Typically, we have interested "candidates" take a class before being baptized, yet the Ethiopian in the bible (Acts 8) doesn't seem to have taken a class before being baptized. I have my own ideas about each of these questions but would love to hear from you.