Church Search Church No. 1 - Buckhead Church

This morning we officially kicked off the Church Search by attending Buckhead Church for the first time. I didn't know much about the church, other than that it was in Buckhead and is very big. We have some friends who are very actively involved in Buckhead Church and others who have checked it out and never returned. But since I didn't know really what to expect, I went with an open mind.

While I didn’t do any research on the church before this morning, tonight I went on the website for some info. Here’s a little bit of background about the church courtesy of buckheadchurch.org:

The church’s mission is “... to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.”

The beliefs:

“We believe the entire Bible is the inspired Word of God and that men were moved by the Spirit of God to write the very words of Scripture. Therefore, we believe the Bible is without error.”

“We believe in one God who exists in three distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We believe that Jesus Christ is the second member of the Trinity (the Son of God) who became flesh to reveal God to humanity and to become the Savior of the lost world. “

“We believe that all people were created in the image of God to have fellowship with him but became alienated in that relationship through sinful disobedience. As a result, people are incapable of regaining a right relationship with God through their own efforts. “


“We believe that the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on the cross, provides the sole basis for the forgiveness of sin. Therefore, God freely offers salvation to those who place their faith in the death and resurrection of Christ as sufficient payment for their sin.”


“We believe all Christians should live for Christ and not for themselves. By obedience to the Word of God and daily yielding to the Spirit of God, every believer should mature and be conformed to the image of Christ.”

“We believe that the church is the body of Christ, of which Jesus Christ is the head. The members of the church are those who have trusted by faith the finished work of Christ. The purpose of the church is to glorify God by loving him and by making him known to the lost world.”

The first thing that jumps out at you upon driving up to the church is the non-traditional look of the church. Mr. Cob said he’d always thought the building was an office building…it’s a four story glass building and the inside is all state of the art. Our friends Katie and BJ met us when we arrived and guided us to the sanctuary, which looked more like a concert hall. The room is HUGE and the “pulpit” is a stage flanked by two huge projection screens. The stage was adorned with a drum set, guitars and lights – lots of lights. It honestly felt like we were going to a concert. Not your typical, traditional church experience.

The service opened with three Christian rock songs. The acoustics were amazing and the music was great. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the music. Probably because it was like we were listening to our typical music, just with different words (i.e. religious words). The singers had wonderful voices, and the concert-ish venue, made it difficult to not appreciate and feel the music. I was thrown off because I’d always assumed I liked traditional hymns better than “contemporary church music” but I now think I might have been mistaken. So far, so good.

As the music comes to a close, Katie leans over and says, “You do know the minister isn’t actually here?” “Um, no”, I say, “what?” Just then a third projection screen dropped over the center of the stage and the minister appeared on the screen. He wasn’t there in person because he was preaching at the Northpoint church. But our service was live – we were getting live feed of him preaching 20 miles up the road. The technology was really quite amazing if you think about it.

Today was the last of a three part series entitled “The White Flag” which examined the story of Jonah. From the brief description of the last two weeks’ sermons, I think I’d have been better suited for one of those services as they discussed people “resisting God” and trying to find their religious path. But today’s service, while not exactly on point with the current status of my own personal religious journey, was still very interesting and thought-provoking; two things that I hope to take away from every church service I attend. The overall message was to not just be a good person and a good Christian, but to get involved and have compassion for all people regardless of the depths of their own commitment to God or Christianity. Mr. Cob and I both left feeling like we wanted to get more involved in our community and the world at large.

Overall, I enjoyed the service and our experience this morning. It definitely is not your traditional church service or atmosphere, but perhaps that’s fitting for me given my non-traditional church-going background. I do want to return and go to a few more services to see if the substance speaks to me. The one major draw back is the enormity of the church. The sanctuary seated more people than the Fox Theater. Not exactly an intimate feeling. But there seem to be many ways to get involved and join smaller groups to meet people and feel more of a connection, if this is the church we do end up picking. The other off-putting part of the sermon was the multiple mentions of managing your finances in accordance with God’s law, which was just kind of confusing and I didn’t really understand what he meant, especially because when the offering was passed around, it was done with very little pomp and circumstance. It was just a bit odd.

Well the Church Search will definitely continue, but we’ll be keeping Buckhead Church on our list.