Day 1

That was only a part of the Prestonwood Baptist Church we saw yesterday. The main worship center seated 7,000! The "smaller" chapel seated 400! That's bigger than all of my Catholic church. This place was MASSIVE! The place takes up nearly 1 million square feet. I'm pretty sure that's the size of an average university. It even had a cafe that served Starbucks, and other foods. On the main stage (the one in the picture above) had a baptistry, in which baptisms are performed at the start of every service, and they believe in full emerson baptism. They only take communion quarterly, which is a strange concept for me, being raised Catholic, we take communion every week, and only sprinkle, or dip the baby's head under water. Which is another difference, they don't baptize babies. They had beautiful stained glass in the entrance which depicted Alpha, Omega, and every book of the Bible. They had massive t.v. screens to show the people who couldn't see, which makes sense some people wouldn't have a good view, seeing as you know, 7,000 people are there. There were fitness centers, youth centers with all sorts of video games, bookstores, massive kids areas, and job centers. In the words of Katelyn Vietti, this was one mega-huge church.



This church on the other hand, Fort Worth Presbyterian Church, was quite petite. It was about the size of the church I go to, seating 250 people. They had beautiful architecture both outside and inside the church. They had excellent acoustics, and a gorgeous stained glass window in the front of the chapel that depicted a cross. They take communion monthly, and do baptize babies. It very much reminded me of my church, so much so that at first when I walked in and sat in a pew, I was confounded at the lack of knee rests on the back of the pews. Their worship combined both classical and contemporary worship, as opposed to the mainly contemporary worship of Prestonwood.

It was very interesting to see the differences between the two, and also similarities within the faith. It just goes to show how dynamic the Christian faith really is.


By: Max Perry