Church Visitation

Review of Alternate Church Experience

Name of church: Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church

Date Attended: April 4, 2005

Name of Speaker: Jones Foote

On the first Sunday in the month of April, I attended Faith Tabernacle Apostolic church. My initial observation when I walked into the church was that most of the congregation was of African-American decent. This was expected by me because I had been informed of this prior to attending. This was one of the reasons why I desired to sit in on their service. This was a different setting then what I am used to at my home church, where only about thirty three percent of the congregation is African-American. Once the service got underway, I was very excited to see how involved the congregation gets into worship. There were people dancing, shouting, and worshiping with everything they had. This was somewhat comforting because this often occurs at my home church. The worship was a little longer than what I am used to, and it seemed to drag on for longer than it should have. During a break in the worship, all of the visitors were asked to stand as to be greeted. This part of the service was one of my favorites. After the visitors all stood, the entire congregation came over to greet each and every visitor, as to welcome them personally. This was able to take place due to the small size of the congregation which was about 60 people. After the worship part of the service had ended, the message was brought by Pastor Jones Foote. The message was a little bit lengthy, but was presented very well. During the message I was not able to detect any doctrinal differences between the Assembly of God beliefs and theirs. I am sure there are differences, but the message that was brought forth did not expose those differences. At the end of the message, like all churches do, an alter call was given for those in the congregation seeking salvation. There were a couple of people that went forward to become saved which was very exciting. After the sinner's prayer was said, the pastor closed off the service with a song. As I was leaving the church I was greeted by numerous members of the congregation, who were eager to talk to me and wanted to get to know me. The church was very welcoming and hospitable and allowed me to feel comfortable despite my