The Beginning of A New Journey

Last spring, my sister Christie Cotney and I began visiting The Church at Brook Hills in our search for a church home that would make us feel welcome. I remember her telling me that we were going to a church over “on 280” and my heart dropped, as I didn’t want to go to one of “those” types of churches. You know the ones – thousands of members, snooty church-goers, a preacher/pastor that breathes fire, state of the art programs, etc. But, being the loving sister that I am (right Christie?), I gave in and visited this church with her. We pull up to the church and here we are at this HUGE building and I thought “Oh, Great! This looks like fun!”

When we walked in, I was surprised that I didn’t feel any type of negativity in the building. Yes, there were lots and lots of people but I did not feel uncomfortable. As I looked around the place, I noticed there was a wide variety of different races, ethnic backgrounds, cultures and mixed families. I am sure the look on my face was priceless: “You mean, THIS church welcomes mixed families?” I mean, isn’t that the view of the average American? Although I wasn’t raised that way, I believe most Americans have this view built into the back of their minds. And that is SAD.

As we tried to find out way to the sanctuary (which I was sure had pristine, white columns, expensive stained glass windows, velvet-covered pews and let’s not forget the choir members sporting their shiny robes with gold “CBH” initials) I remember looking around the place. What I saw made my heart sink as I felt a little bad for thinking negatively. I saw hand-made cardboards that had statistics about world religion and poverty and real life pictures of some of the world’s poorest countries and its people. As I looked at these pictures, I thought “Wow! Just wow!”

As we walked into the worship room, I was both not surprised and surprised. I was not surprised by the massiveness of the room. I mean, after all, what would you expect out of a “megachurch”? But I WAS surprised to see none of those things I mentioned before. My eyes fixed upon the stage in front of me. This is what I saw:




And….the thing I struggled with the most was CBH’s pastor, David Platt. I mean, he was 32 years old and dubbed the “youngest megachurch pastor in history”. Mega.Church. Yep, just what I needed. But, Boy, oh boy! After the first sermon I heard David Platt preach, I was SOLD! Christie was pretty smitten too :)

You will see me refer to David many many many many times on this blog. He is such an inspiration for me and so many other people. He speaks with such passion and conviction and answers all of those hard questions that we are all scared to ask.