Austin Tuckerman
7 November 2012
Ministry Visit Paper
CMI 127 Volunteer work is an extremely important action when pursuing a profession in ministry. In order to assure that one’s abilities are used to the fullest, one should schedule ministry visits. So far this semester, I have traveled to three different churches to explore where I would possibly fit in the best. I have never realized the vast differences that stand out among churches that are nearly ten minutes away. These ministry visits have indeed sparked my interest more to work within a church one day; and these visits will definitely not be my last. The first church I visited was 1208 Greenwood. 1208 is a growing, recently established, urban Free Methodist church seeking to reach the Jackson community with the love and power of Jesus Christ. They are not just a church that gathers on Sunday. It is a church that meets a number of times during the week to spread the Word of God. 1208 wants to strongly influence the Jackson area by being a network of faith communities. This church builds relationships with others and disciples its own people to walk in the holiness of God and the power is His everlasting Spirit. Before the service started, I was politely invited into a prayer group to bless the worship band, the speaker, and the people attending that morning. After that, we were asked to be seated for the welcoming to the service. Once we were welcomed, we were encouraged to stand, walk around, and acquaint ourselves with someone we have never seen before. Now, this was somewhat hard because the congregation was very small and I knew a lot of the people attending that morning. Nevertheless, the environment was very friendly, and it definitely seemed that every person was there to increase their relationship with God. Then came and intense and intimate time of worship. To be honest, that worship was the strongest presence of God that I have ever experienced! 1208 Greenwood seems like the perfect environment that would truly bring out my full potential in ministry. Honestly, I have never felt so comfortable to worship God freely in a church than I did that Sunday morning. It probably did help that there were a lot of friendly faces there that I have already met here at Spring Arbor. However, I just connected with the whole church; especially with the people I had never met before. I surely hope that I will have the chance to volunteer or even work at 1208 while I am here at Spring Arbor, because it almost feels like that is the place that God could be calling me to be. The next ministry that I visited was Westwinds. Westwinds is an orthodox church with an unorthodox meaning. That simply means that they are not crazy or cultists and that they have a high energy, non-traditional approach to ministry. They work to shadow God, build the church, and heal the world. They believe that we were created to know God intimately and to follow Him in order to experience the life He desires for all creation. Prior to the service, the sanctuary doors were closed. This was done on purpose, so that interaction was practically enforced. This was a great tactic as the group I was with was able to mingle with a lot of different people of the church, which helped to make us feel welcome. The doors then soon opened and as I walked into this very large sanctuary I was overwhelmed by the creativity. It was a very darkened hall with a barn looking interior. They had individual light bulbs hanging from the ceiling to further emphasize the appearance of the inside of a barn. I was told that Westwinds changes its design of the sanctuary every two weeks or so. This church is by far a technologically advanced ministry. They have an enormous sound booth in the back corner with probably about six computer monitors: each most likely running a different function. All this technology helped to really beef up the worship music. With the projectors and