The Grove

I was so looking forward to going here because a family I love and respect go here. We attended once in February and I was looking for a Bible believing and practicing church that would suit the needs of each member of our family.
This was also one of the few churches that I found that had both jr and sr high school times meeting at the same time as the adult service. THAT, I really loved and I don’t know why more churches don’t do this. They often have high school times a different time than jr high Sunday morning or it’s on Sunday evening or only on Wednesdays. All this poses a big problem for us because Sunday evenings and Wednesday evenings don’t work for my daughter who goes to a very intense high school that is super rigorous.
The sermon by the pastor was good. The auditorium where the service is held is gorgeous and I love the layout. It seemed to have a younger crowd of people, which is fine, of upper middle class mainly. Met some nice people there.
But, a church isn’t about the building or the being nice. Do the people learn the Word of God, the Bible there. Is the Bible practiced? Is the presence of God there? Was this a place that we can each grow spiritually, as well as serve?
When I got out of service, I asked my kids what they thought and my son who usually loves everything said he really hated the junior high. My daughter was not impressed with the high schoolers, either. No worship at all. How do you start off a Bible study with zero worship time? It’s hard to leave the cares of the world behind and we feel having a good worship helps one connect and focus on the Lord Jesus. Guess that’s not real important here.
For my son for junior high, it seemed more like a babysitting time of unruly tweens. So many distractions and he said worship was not something the tweens respected, nor were they respectful. The tweens were goofing around and getting in trouble and therefore got him in trouble by blame shifting. My son doesn’t go to a new place to misbehave. He knows how to act and we are very familiar with being in church. He also mentioned a number of kids kept taking God’s name in vain.
Honestly, my kids have been in church their whole lives and we’ve never been to a church where the kids disrespected God so much that they would take His name in vain at church. Poor leadership of the children, poor example of godliness and apparently the parents of these children don’t practice having a good relationship with God at home, or even how to have it, much less respect God.
I did write to the Grove Church the day after we went. That was nearly a month ago and no one responded at all. I guess it really doesn’t matter as they seem to have a big congregation and maybe it’s not the church’s concern to really teach and help disciple people in the Bible, nor their children. Maybe this is a church that is out to have fun and it’s just a big get together and God really doesn’t matter. I think if that’s what you’re looking for, this might be the place to be.
But, for my family and I, we want to grow in our walks with the Lord as well as serve, be part of a community of Christ believers that not only hear the Word, but talk and walk it.

THE BEST PLACE to take pictures in arizona!!! beautiful!!!