This trip was one I have been looking forward to for a long time, because Christ’s Church of the Valley or CCV, is the last of the Churches that have been putting on a marriage conference and have invited me to participate in one of the weeks of speaking. When I arrived at the Phoenix Airport I was picked by a terrific lady named Kim who is the assistant to Senior Pastor Don and as we talked about the Church one thing that I realized was remarkable about this particular Church is that Pastor Don puts a huge emphasis on attracting and speaking to men. So many churches are so female-oriented that many men just don’t feel at home in Church. There has actually been books written about this, including one that I believe is called something like “Why Men Hate Church”. This pastor Don is a real man’s man and from the ground up the Church has been designed to really appeal to men. The colors are very masculine. The interior design is very guy-friendly with a lot of stone work and very masculine color, it is a very handsome Church, and even the worship team is designed with many more men than women.
As the Pastor’s assistant explained to me, so many Churches have female worship leaders and it’s hard for a man to sing along with a female worship leader often because their voices are in a higher register and it is hard for the man to sing along with her. Whereas, if it is a male worship leader, both women and men can sing along equally well. So, they had more men than women on the worship team which is the reverse of many Churches. And in general the whole experience is designed to make men feel at home. They don’t use language that is confusing to men, for example, when talking about how we come to know the Lord they wouldn’t use the word, a personal relationship with Christ because to many men the word ‘relationship’ isn’t really their language, they don’t really know what that means so they use a ‘journey with Christ, an adventure with Christ’ and explain it that way and I just love that. I felt that that was really terrific. And of course doing a series on sex is also something I think that is of interest to men. So, this was a great way to wrap up the series of six Churches that I have spoken to as part of the series on sex.
I hope I get more invitations. I hope other Churches decide to do this as well, but for now I am so delighted with the ability to speak to these folks, especially since this was a very, very large Church and in an area that isn’t as Churchy as the South East or many other areas of the country.
So, all in all I was so appreciative of how well everything went. I had problems with the credit card machines and in selling books and the guy who was in charge of the bookstore took care of it. If I needed a coffee somebody got me one. If I had questions people took me through it. They were very, very expert and buttoned-up and it was a real pleasure to be with them and to see this terrific Church and how they’re reaching out to their community.
This was a beautiful hotel I stayed in while in Arizona. 