My experience at Canyons Church was mixed. First, I want to describe what the interior was like. The Church is very polished and fancy versus the Zen simplicity of Mountain Creek Community Church. The windows are stained glass and once your inside it is like crossing into a place where a concert venue meets a seminar. The music is also very much like a concert, the plus being that there is a lot of passion.
When I arrived my first thought was the Gospel of Wealth - Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace was being discussed and to buy the book and DVDs...when I think the problems of religion I think selfishness and money...so that wasn't the best impression coming in, seeing that a decent amount of time had been put apart for that seminar.
After the invitation for the congregation to take part in Financial Peace - Surprise! Time for collections. Need I say more.
You're probably thinking it was negative experience from here on, but it wasn't. The actual sermon itself had merit to it. It was about working out spiritual muscles which ended up being live how God wants you to live by serving others. Your saved, now live it! That was something I could get behind and was a contrast to the focus on the self that had been talked about before. The sermon used many props - a cleaner the preacher had bought from a traveling salesman, a golf club, and water weights...and that were used to illustrate different points during the sermon on the lead up of the point to have a relationship to God by serving others.
After there was the call to accept to be "Saved," and the last song. It was a mixed experience overall, revealing both the positive (service) and negative (Gospel of Wealth) that religion so often brings. I don't see myself coming here again but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.
