In answer to a question....

....from Journeyman.

"I'm just curious, but back in your first post you said...

"We are both looking for a new church, as our old one has ceased to fulfill, so we are genuine and would be doing this anyhow."

How is the search for a new church going? It has been interesting reading your blog but I've been waiting for you to say that "We've found somewhere, OK it's not perfect, but it's good and we're happy so we're staying".

This is a blog that I'd love to see end, or move onto a new topic."

First of all, Hello Journeyman! Great to hear from you, it's nice to know we have some readers after all.

The search for a new church is going really well. As you can see on the sidebar, we have a list of churches that we've really liked so far. There's definately a shortlist of places that we'll go back to and mull over and pray about in more detail. However, we want to visit as many of the churches in Southampton as possible in case the church that's best for us is one we'd never consider otherwise. To be honest, it's also really fun, as we get to meet lots of interesting people and try out new ways of worshipping. It has also helped us work out what's not for us.

What has also been interesting is the feedback we've had from the churches we've visted. A lot of the churches have found it useful to see how their church appears to a visitor. One has published our review in the parish magazine! Dave Walker on the Church Times blog alerted us to this where people are paying for a mystery shopper type visit to their churches.

We'll be writing up the churches we've visited whilst the blog's been on hiatus next week and the reviews will continue as normal.

Normal Service....

... will be resumed shortly. We are currently extremely busy with things, but those things will be sorted in a fortnight. Coming soon to a Southampton Church Review blog near you, reviews of St Mark's Church, Archers Road, Avenue St Andrews URC, The Avenue, Swaythling Methodist Church, Burgess Road and many more, possibly including a shiny new feature, Guest blogging!

Promise.

We're off to Central Hall later.

This Week

We went to a party last night, in another county.

We were still in said county this morning, so we were going to go to an evening service.

We arrived and the Church Building had a notice saying there was not a servce there this week, disappointing given the website checked and hour before said nothing of the sort.

Next week we are on holiday, however we may have a special guest report!

Tech Blather

Technorati Profile

This Week

The older one was ill. No church was visited, not a good start really.

Well, this weeks church will be up next week then.

This would be easier if Sundays happened more often.

The First Post

Salutations.

The nature of this blog, I suspect, is somewhat self explanatory in principle yet rather lacking in detail. So allow me to enlighten you, somewhat, on the inner workings. We, the Intrepid Duo, travel to a different church in Southampton and wander in, looking lost, just before service time. We are both looking for a new church, as our old one has ceased to fulfill, so we are genuine and would be doing this anyhow. However in a moment of genius/insanity the older one decided that we could record our exploits in the form of a weblog, to share with others and also remind ourselves.

As the first visit is tomorrow we are busy thinking up marking criteria, clearly the reviews will be strongly subjective, especially on matters such as the sermon's content, the choice of music, or quality of communion wine. The number of invites to lunch after and length of the sermon are easily quantified, while the warmth of welcome and comfort of pew are to a lesser extent.

The Intrepid Duo between us have been about a bit church-wise, but not so much in Southampton. The older one has a middle of the road anglican starting point tempered with a large dollop of highly charismatic evangelical house church. I myself have a young childhood of middle-high traditional anglican a large gap and then a sprinkling of this and that. Our last church was a low, fairly evangelical Anglican jobby. We have no idea what our ideal church is, hence trying them all.

Oh, and yes we are totally ripping off inspired by the Mystery Worshipper of Ship of Fools.