East Texas Worship with Paul Baloche

Had a chance to visit Community Christian Fellowship in little Garden Valley, TX several weeks ago. It was about a 2-hour drive for my wife and daughter, and we struck out early one Sunday through winding East Texas roads in search of this non-descript congregation. The draw? Besides being located in a ministry mecca (Lindale/Garden Valley is/was home to World Challenge, Teen Challenge, Teen Mania, Mercy Ships, Keith Green, Leonard Ravenhill, et all), CCF is also the home church of worship leader Paul Baloche, whose songs most of us sing any given Sunday. I had emailed him some time back to find out when he would be home, and managed to schedule my trip around that particular date.

Some interesting notes:

• The church building itself was nothing extraordinary - not the megachurch edifice you'd expect with a musician of his magnitude (cf. Israel Houghten). The place was packed - SRO - but we managed to find a seat.
• Musicians were great, but obviously not professionals. Ordinary folk.
• The congregation were mostly sub-30-something, and (as I learned from the pastor) comprised largely of community people (as opposed to commuters like me).
• The service? Intimate, unpolished, authentic worship. No lights, no drama, no show. No "concert feel". In fact, you'd never know the guy up front was anything extraordinary (albeit obviously gifted).

My reflections? Professional musicians/artists have little interest to me unless they intimately connected to a local church. I don't think God needs more CCM artists. But he does need more local church leaders. Also, my visit brought some corrective to the notion that "worship" needs to be novel, polished, show-y, and entertaining. On the contrary, we all see through that, and it feels contrived and insincere.