METRO CHURCH - QUITE A PLACE!

“...Behold, I make all things new...” (Revelation 21:5)


At the beginning of this week’s “John 17:23 Fellowship” Retreat on Wednesday, Dick Germaine announced that the retreat would be different from any retreat we had ever attended.  Indeed it was!

On Wednesday evening after supper, we piled into several cars and were told we were going to a mystery destination.  I had no idea where we were going or what we were would be doing.  I actually thought we might be going on a scavenger hunt or something!  

We were driven to Metro Church in Marlboro.  Metro Church leases a whole floor of a modern “office/industrial” type building on Elm Street in Marlboro, just a short distance from Routes 495 and 20.

Metro Church (formerly known as MetroWest Christian Life Center, and formerly in other rental space in another part of Marlboro) is a large (for Massachusetts) independent charismatic church on the “cutting edge” of what God is doing in New England.  For more information, you can check out
 
www.metro-church.net

Metro’s Pastor Don Braswell, originally from Virginia, is not a typical large church pastor.  He’s a very modest and humble guy.  Braswell came to Marlboro in the 1980s.  His original congregation was just a handful of people meeting in a home.  The church now numbers several hundred in regular attendance.

Probably the most interesting and exciting aspect of Metro Church is their youth ministry.  Braswell’s son Chad (who is being groomed to be Senior Pastor someday when his father retires) is the youth pastor.  Chad’s spiked hair, tattoo and earrings are not MY style, but he definitely connects with today’s kids.  Metro Church has an outstanding youth ministry center complete with pool tables, other games, AND modern video and computer games including “wii”.  The pastors spent two hours doing what most of us never do:  playing games!  For many of us, it felt really weird, but by the time we were done, we’d all surprised ourselves.  I must say I enjoyed the guitar “rock star” computer game, which was popular with many pastors. The guys under 35 tended to be best at it, but even we “over 50” types had fun.

Almost half of the “John 17:23 Fellowship” pastors lead churches of under 75 and many (like me) lead churches of under 50.  Visiting the facility of a church which runs several hundred in  attendance and which has all kinds of “state of the art stuff” for kids was mind-blowing for us, and frankly can usually bring out jealous feelings of, “How come THEY have such a big church and we don’t?”  But the good news on Wednesday night is that all of us came away GLAD for what Metro Church in Marlboro is doing!  We know it’s way beyond what most of our churches are doing, or may ever do, BUT it does give you a vision of what God CAN do...and considering Pastor Don Braswell started out with a handful of people in a living room...well, anything is possible!

Like the 1980s “This is NOT your father’s Oldsmobile” commercials, Metro Church is nothing like evangelical and Pentecostal churches were thirty years ago or even fifteen years ago.  This is really new generation 21st Century stuff!  For a pretty conservative guy like me who tends to be slow to change, Metro Church is REALLY different, but I believe it is a harbinger of things to come in New England.  God is moving.  God is raising up pastors and churches who  “think outside the box” and as conservative as I tend to be, my “take” on it is, “More power to ‘em”.... Holy Spirit power, that is!