WWJD?... Would He Cage Fight?

Ummm, so, yeah...

Jeff, the kids, and I tried a new church this morning and I have to say that I was actually really optimistic that we would quickly find the right church for our family; after all, we've had excellent success in finding the perfect church in the last two states we've lived.  

From the looks of it, the church we selected this week had a lot going for it: it's Baptist (more difficult to find in the Northeast than it is in the Bible Belt), had a nice mix of young adults, children, and older members, AND had an AWESOME website; sadly, the latter of the three was the factor than tilted the proverbial scale to green-light a Sunday morning trial.

So, we went, and almost immediately after walking in we realized that the entire ambiance was different - weird, even - but once you've walked in, your stuck right?

On the upside, everyone was really friendly and the feel was casual, which was nice - one guy was even wearing cowboy boots, a definite bonus to a Texas girl like me.

The first thing that stuck out to us was that the entire interior of the sanctuary was painted black - black walls, black floor, black seats, and black stage.  Definitely a far cry from our beautiful and bright church back in McKinney and an even further stretch from the churches that my husband, the Catholic, is accustomed to.  

"Poor styling, no big deal," I thought, trying to stay positive.

But then, there was the pastor...

It was difficult, but I was able to look past his tight fitting T-shirt (Jeff commented that the shirt would have fit Jake, and he may actually be right!).  I could overlook (with a great deal of channeling my inner WWJD? mentality) the Bedazzled rhinestone-studded back pockets of his jeans.  But, during a discussion of fear, when the guy said, and I quote, "You think I'm not scared when I step into that cage?"... I had to ask myself if I'd misheard what he'd said.

Just a few minutes ago, Jeff jokingly asked me if the pastor was a cage fighter - we giggled, and were both under the (naive) impression that the dude was painting a figurative picture, but as a self-proclaimed investigative reporter, I decided to turn to my most reliable informant, Google, and searched the man's name - we'll stay generic: Joe Smith- cage fighter.

Would you believe that results actually popped up!!!  Turns out, he's the featured pastor in a documentary about cage-fighting Christians...  really?!?!?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all about "to each his own," but there's something about seeing a pastor on a movie trailer, punching someone's face in that screams - no - whispers, in a spine-tingling, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-raising voice, "run."  

Ugh, so, so weird.

Needless to say, the chances of us returning to that church are slim to none.  The unfortunate thing is, I now have an overwhelming desire to call area churches to ask for the pastor's stance on cage fighting.  And, no, I'm not kidding and, no, me choosing to do so isn't completely out of the question...

Chalk this one up to yet another lesson learned in judging a book by its cover, or in this case, website.

Praying we find an awesome, family-oriented, Bible-believing and teaching, NON-VIOLENT church.