As my family gets established back in Waco we are in search of a church. We grew up Catholic and attended Catholic Churches as we have moved throughout the country, but like many we just found them to be redundant and non-inspiring. We could see in our kids eyes they were just checking a box and maybe we were too.

I decided to look at non-denominational when we were in Arkansas and then actually found a Lutheran church that we all loved. It is not a traditional Lutheran church and is actually a test. Has a young, relatable pastor(40) and mainly same age congregation…actually feels more Baptist with storytelling and music, but has a traditional 5 minutes tucked in there :-). My daughters said they learned more in two services at this place than all the years going to Catholic Church. Here is a sample of style

https://www.youtube.com/live/sxGCTK8nNOs?si=-OBRp1rOOeSU8n0k

https://theneighborhood.church/

I checked the Lutheran churches here and they are not this new style at all. Any suggestions on churches we should try that are similar here? Looking for one that has a pastor who is relatable and uses storytelling to connect messages. Never got that when we went to Catholic Churches and I am nervous about going to huge Baptist churches here.

renewchurchwaco.org/leadership

You might look at Dayspring. It is Baptist but not typical Baptist and not a huge church. I don't know their theology well so not sure there but their style is very unhurried worship. Their building is near the woods and their front has large windows so it feels a bit like being in nature. We just visited worship once so don't know a lot else about them but liked the worship style. Attracts a rather significant group of younger people.

Grace Waco. Our son goes there, but it's not a college-dominated church. It's multi-generational, and the elders preach the Word.

https://gracewaco.com/

Localbear said:

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As my family gets established back in Waco we are in search of a church. We grew up Catholic and attended Catholic Churches as we have moved throughout the country, but like many we just found them to be redundant and non-inspiring. We could see in our kids eyes they were just checking a box and maybe we were too.

I decided to look at non-denominational when we were in Arkansas and then actually found a Lutheran church that we all loved. It is not a traditional Lutheran church and is actually a test. Has a young, relatable pastor(40) and mainly same age congregation…actually feels more Baptist with storytelling and music, but has a traditional 5 minutes tucked in there :-). My daughters said they learned more in two services at this place than all the years going to Catholic Church. Here is a sample of style

https://www.youtube.com/live/sxGCTK8nNOs?si=-OBRp1rOOeSU8n0k

https://theneighborhood.church/

I checked the Lutheran churches here and they are not this new style at all. Any suggestions on churches we should try that are similar here? Looking for one that has a pastor who is relatable and uses storytelling to connect messages. Never got that when we went to Catholic Churches and I am nervous about going to huge Baptist churches here.

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Localbear - Please ask yourself if you are attending church for you or for God. If one is going for "themselves" or to "get something out of it" then one is attending for the wrong reasons.

The 3rd commandment is "Remember to keep holy Sabbath day", not get "be-entertained-and-good-feeling day."

Deuteronomy 6:4-5
"Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one! You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

This is the Jewish Shema Yisrael. Every faithful Jew prays this everyday.

Jesus echos this in Matthew 22:37, Mark 12:30, & Luke 10:27 - it must be important.

Having said that, I would recommend that you investigate St. Louis/St. Phillip in Waco/China Spring. Fr. Ryan is an excellent homilist and an outstanding confessor. I know the people running their Youth program and they do a wonderful job.

Fr. Finch at St. Peter's at Baylor is a quiet, but amazing priest. The parish is small, but the students are engaged and love it there.

I'd also recommend St. Jerome in Hewitt. Fr. James is a good (but longer) homilist and a holy man trying a build a parish of intentional disciples. It is has been my parish since my early teens when it was founded in the 80's.

The Catechism states that the parents are the primary educators of the faith. Embarrassingly, I failed at that during my kids' early years. I've been trying to make up for that. I've been part of the youth ministry program at St Jerome's for 14 years. Our Youth Director is phenomenal. The youth in our parish may end up leaving the Church, but it isn't because they know the the faith.

We are blowing up the youth and family ministries in our parish. We are moving toward a Family-led, Parish-supported ministry for the youth and our families. It will be staring in the fall. I'm very excited about this change. Our goal is to keep more people in the Church. What we've been doing isn't working. This is not just a Catholic problem. It's systemic in throughout all Christian churches.

Please feel free to PM me if you ever want to reach out.

May God bless you and the Holy Spirit guide you on your search for Jesus.

Localbear said:

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As my family gets established back in Waco we are in search of a church. We grew up Catholic and attended Catholic Churches as we have moved throughout the country, but like many we just found them to be redundant and non-inspiring. We could see in our kids eyes they were just checking a box and maybe we were too.

I decided to look at non-denominational when we were in Arkansas and then actually found a Lutheran church that we all loved. It is not a traditional Lutheran church and is actually a test. Has a young, relatable pastor(40) and mainly same age congregation…actually feels more Baptist with storytelling and music, but has a traditional 5 minutes tucked in there :-). My daughters said they learned more in two services at this place than all the years going to Catholic Church. Here is a sample of style

https://www.youtube.com/live/sxGCTK8nNOs?si=-OBRp1rOOeSU8n0k

https://theneighborhood.church/

I checked the Lutheran churches here and they are not this new style at all. Any suggestions on churches we should try that are similar here? Looking for one that has a pastor who is relatable and uses storytelling to connect messages. Never got that when we went to Catholic Churches and I am nervous about going to huge Baptist churches here.

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You should check out St. Alban's. I'd describe it as a traditional, but vibrant church. Very biblical sermons, but extremely relatable. The pastors are very engaging, especially the lead pastor Aaron Zimmerman. (That isn't a slight towards the others, but rather a compliment to Zimmerman.)

A couple sample sermons from recent weeks:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-albans-sermons/id941861469?i=1000647870661

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-albans-sermons/id941861469?i=1000649496960

We usually go to the more traditional services, but there is also what is called a folk service at 9:15.

All of the services are streamed online and archived, so if you'd like to see what the services are like, check out the St. Alban's Waco YouTube channel.

Localbear, could you give a link to the church you attended in Arkansas. It might help us find a similar parish to direct you towards. All of the congregations listed I think are truly seeking God even though they might have theological disagreements with each other. I hope that you will find the right fit for your family.

As far as Dayspring goes, it has a Contemplative style of worship. We enjoyed it the multiple times that we visited.

RightRevBear said:

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Localbear, could you give a link to the church you attended in Arkansas. It might help us find a similar parish to direct you towards. All of the congregations listed I think are truly seeking God even though they might have theological disagreements with each other. I hope that you will find the right fit for your family.

As far as Dayspring goes, it has a Contemplative style of worship. We enjoyed it the multiple times that we visited.

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We go to Dayspring for the last 15 years. It is a mix of Baptist, Episcopalian, and Catholic. Our pastor even has his doctorate from a Catholic seminary.

Back in my day, Columbus and1st Baptist Waco and 1st Baptist Woodway were large established churches. Don't hear much about them now. Have they declined significantly?

boxster said:

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Back in my day, Columbus and1st Baptist Waco and 1st Baptist Woodway were large established churches. Don't hear much about them now. Have they declined significantly?

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FBC Woodway is still extremely well attended.

Columbus hemorrhaged quite a bit during multiple churns through music ministers and a pastoral transition about a decade ago. I know many who left CABC and landed at FBC Waco.

Jackson Bear said:

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boxster said:

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Back in my day, Columbus and1st Baptist Waco and 1st Baptist Woodway were large established churches. Don't hear much about them now. Have they declined significantly?

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FBC Waco is doing well under Matt Snowden. He has been there over 10 years now and that was the previous timeframe when the last several pastors left. The last pastor who served significantly longer than 10 years was Bill Dawson, who is a giant in Baptist history (particularly in the area of Church-State relations). I think Matt may be a lifer there. Having Magnolia and the area around redevelop has also really helped the church, both in members and finances.

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Good to hear. Would hate for that beautiful building to not house a thriving church.

Ludwig von Missi said:

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Localbear said:

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As my family gets established back in Waco we are in search of a church. We grew up Catholic and attended Catholic Churches as we have moved throughout the country, but like many we just found them to be redundant and non-inspiring. We could see in our kids eyes they were just checking a box and maybe we were too.

I decided to look at non-denominational when we were in Arkansas and then actually found a Lutheran church that we all loved. It is not a traditional Lutheran church and is actually a test. Has a young, relatable pastor(40) and mainly same age congregation…actually feels more Baptist with storytelling and music, but has a traditional 5 minutes tucked in there :-). My daughters said they learned more in two services at this place than all the years going to Catholic Church. Here is a sample of style

https://www.youtube.com/live/sxGCTK8nNOs?si=-OBRp1rOOeSU8n0k

https://theneighborhood.church/

I checked the Lutheran churches here and they are not this new style at all. Any suggestions on churches we should try that are similar here? Looking for one that has a pastor who is relatable and uses storytelling to connect messages. Never got that when we went to Catholic Churches and I am nervous about going to huge Baptist churches here.

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You should check out St. Alban's. I'd describe it as a traditional, but vibrant church. Very biblical sermons, but extremely relatable. The pastors are very engaging, especially the lead pastor Aaron Zimmerman. (That isn't a slight towards the others, but rather a compliment to Zimmerman.)

A couple sample sermons from recent weeks:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-albans-sermons/id941861469?i=1000647870661

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-albans-sermons/id941861469?i=1000649496960

We usually go to the more traditional services, but there is also what is called a folk service at 9:15.

All of the services are streamed online and archived, so if you'd like to see what the services are like, check out the St. Alban's Waco YouTube channel.

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We were in Memphis for basketball so we weren't able to attend, but we watched online and thought it was a beautiful, poignant, Palm Sunday service. Check it out if inclined:

https://www.youtube.com/live/qPhvyeiV6z8?si=CjhDWoUAct477GIo

And if anyone watches and wants to follow along, here is the service bulletin:

https://www.stalbanswaco.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2024-03-24-Palm-Sunday-0900-1115.pdf

We attended FUMC Waco from about 2000-2017, loved it there. The pastor retired and the place never recovered. We bounced around for a year between FBC Woodway and Harris Creek and eventually joined HC. We really like it.

Jackson Bear said:

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boxster said:

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Back in my day, Columbus and1st Baptist Waco and 1st Baptist Woodway were large established churches. Don't hear much about them now. Have they declined significantly?

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FBC Waco is doing well under Matt Snowden. He has been there over 10 years now and that was the previous timeframe when the last several pastors left. The last pastor who served significantly longer than 10 years was J.M. Dawson, who is a giant in Baptist history (particularly in the area of Church-State relations). I think Matt may be a lifer there. Having Magnolia and the area around redevelop has also really helped the church, both in members and finances.

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Indeed. My wife (Who was Catholic her whole life) and I go to FBC Waco. When we got engaged, we went to many different churches and settled on FBC Waco as it is mostly traditional, but not antiquated Baptist.

Snowden is one of the funniest, most down to earth pastors I've ever encountered, but so well grounded in the Word that it is incredibly fun to listen to him preach.

Every now and then, he'll drop a line in a sermon like "it's like the great Texas poet Robert Earl Keen says......" or something like that. Just funny little anecdotes to show that he's serious about his preaching, but well aware of his audience.

The music there has drastically improved with Andy Muskrat coming aboard. The choir and orchestra combined are a thing of beauty (many Baylor music students comprise the orchestra).

FBC Woodway will have the most activity for 4th grade - HS students.

As Ludwig said, St Alban's is a wonderful church as well and Aaron Zimmerman is an absolute blessing. He's a good friend (He and Snowden are very good friends as well), and we've enjoyed trips to their services on occasion.



Also, sure do miss seeing your Dad at services. We haven't been near as often as we like the past couple years with the young kiddos and a bunch of the stuff we went through early on with our oldest, but we watch on tv when we can't go.

About anything you are looking for in a church is available in Waco. I once heard Peter McLeod, then pastor of FBC Waco, refer to Waco as an Ecclesiastical Disneyland.

trey3216 said:

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Jackson Bear said:

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boxster said:

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Back in my day, Columbus and1st Baptist Waco and 1st Baptist Woodway were large established churches. Don't hear much about them now. Have they declined significantly?

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FBC Waco is doing well under Matt Snowden. He has been there over 10 years now and that was the previous timeframe when the last several pastors left. The last pastor who served significantly longer than 10 years was J.M. Dawson, who is a giant in Baptist history (particularly in the area of Church-State relations). I think Matt may be a lifer there. Having Magnolia and the area around redevelop has also really helped the church, both in members and finances.

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Indeed. My wife (Who was Catholic her whole life) and I go to FBC Waco. When we got engaged, we went to many different churches and settled on FBC Waco as it is mostly traditional, but not antiquated Baptist.

Snowden is one of the funniest, most down to earth pastors I've ever encountered, but so well grounded in the Word that it is incredibly fun to listen to him preach.

Every now and then, he'll drop a line in a sermon like "it's like the great Texas poet Robert Earl Keen says......" or something like that. Just funny little anecdotes to show that he's serious about his preaching, but well aware of his audience.

The music there has drastically improved with Andy Muskrat coming aboard. The choir and orchestra combined are a thing of beauty (many Baylor music students comprise the orchestra).

FBC Woodway will have the most activity for 4th grade - HS students.

As Ludwig said, St Alban's is a wonderful church as well and Aaron Zimmerman is an absolute blessing. He's a good friend (He and Snowden are very good friends as well), and we've enjoyed trips to their services on occasion.



Also, sure do miss seeing your Dad at services. We haven't been near as often as we like the past couple years with the young kiddos and a bunch of the stuff we went through early on with our oldest, but we watch on tv when we can't go.

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My wife grew up Baptist and I grew up Lutheran, so finding a church home that felt right for both of us was always a bit of a challenge.

Before we eventually settled at St. Alban's, First Baptist was the first church we that attended semi-regularly. It's a beautiful church and Snowden is fantastic. My parents actually got married there back in the early '80s, so I've always felt a bit of connection there.

St. Alban's is having their Maunday Thursday service tonight. It is an extremely powerful and moving service. Here is a little more info in case anyone is interested:

Ditto on Matt Snowden. Fine pastor and man. FBC Waco is a beautiful church. They don't make 'em like that anymore.

If you are willing to consider remaining Catholic, St. Jerome in Hewitt is a thriving, multigenerational parish. We have an excellent Nigerian priest, Father James, who is very knowledgeable and straightforward about Catholic doctrine and how it can be applied to our lives.

Catechism for both children and adults is taken seriously and heavily promoted. We have a new Catholic Childhood Education program that is much different and more comprehensive than anything that has been done before. For adults, we also have small group Bible studies and a "Catholic 101" doctrine class.

I didn't grow up Catholic, but St. Jerome showed me just how good Catholicism can be at its best. I hope you'll consider joining us.

ARbear13 said:

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If you are willing to consider remaining Catholic, St. Jerome in Hewitt is a thriving, multigenerational parish. We have an excellent Nigerian priest, Father James

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I had a flat on Chapel and pulled into St Jerome to fix it and he was out there in about 2 minutes to see if I needed help. Of course being a stubborn man, I couldn't possibly accept help to change a tire. I politely declined, but man he was quick to offer a hand.

BaylorHistory said:

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ARbear13 said:

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If you are willing to consider remaining Catholic, St. Jerome in Hewitt is a thriving, multigenerational parish. We have an excellent Nigerian priest, Father James

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I had a flat on Chapel and pulled into St Jerome to fix it and he was out there in about 2 minutes to see if I needed help. Of course being a stubborn man, I couldn't possibly accept help to change a tire. I politely declined, but man he was quick to offer a hand.

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That sounds exactly like him. Father James is a holy man, and that is not a term I use lightly.

As the only priest currently assigned to our parish, Father James is extremely overworked. To give him a break, the parish pays for him to take a well-earned sabbatical most years. This year, he used his "vacation" to go home to Nigeria to officiate his niece's wedding. While he was there, he provided money for food aid and housing repairs to the poorest of the poor in his home village.

That's the kind of person Father James is. St. Jerome is blessed to have him as our pastor. He practices what he preaches.

ARbear13 said:

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BaylorHistory said:

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ARbear13 said:

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If you are willing to consider remaining Catholic, St. Jerome in Hewitt is a thriving, multigenerational parish. We have an excellent Nigerian priest, Father James

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I had a flat on Chapel and pulled into St Jerome to fix it and he was out there in about 2 minutes to see if I needed help. Of course being a stubborn man, I couldn't possibly accept help to change a tire. I politely declined, but man he was quick to offer a hand.

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As the only priest currently assigned to our parish, Father James is extremely overworked.

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I can 100% believe that. I'm not Catholic but I've been to 3 different Catholic functions recently and all of them were performed by Father Benji (I'm not sure how it's spelled as I've only heard it) who is at Sacred Heart, and this was at three different churches in the county too.

Thanks to those who have posted here. My husband and I have only occasionally gone to church since moving to Waco three years ago. I'll admit it's been for Christmas and Easter. When we discuss finding a church home here it is overwhelming. Several items in this thread resonate and will be helpful.