St. Micheal's

Ahhh' church.
The misses and me have been spending Sunday mornings traveling around the area and sorta picking a church (one week its her choice then it's me, this was my week). Last week we went to the Church of Christ (which is her church from her childhood) and this week it was St Micheal's on Grand Forks north side (okay, this is a pretty small town, however it is neatly cut in half by the railroad so there is definite sides to town, the north side has the university, the potato factories and poor people and the south side has the commercial stuff and the expansion).
The pros: most diverse crowd we have seen at church since we can here (many kids and families and people from all walks of life), loved the fact that women are in positions of power (women were readers, helped with communion and the collection of the cash, this is something that bothers me when we go to other churches, when little boys are put in positions of power and women are regulated to make coffee and donuts, that is a reflection on how they want to see society as a whole), I loved the building and all the art, I loved the chorus and organ (the Church of Christ doesn't have either of these, plain buildings and no organ, however I'm always impressed by the singing in the COC, have not left disappointed by the songs and singing) and lastly I loved the message. The priest talked about death and forgiveness and the love we want to feel for others (also referenced "love thy neighbor" which I believe is the core message of Christianity, but I'm not a scholar, the COC had someone talk about their war stories and how people found Jesus in war and why that was important while stressing that the Christian message was important and I left thinking it was a war message, did I mention how we believed that audience in the COC may have been full of military/air force personal).
Cons: while I love ceremony I can understand why Catholics fall in line with things (it was a rigorous structured program, stand, kneel, not really sing with choir, move forward) again I love ceremony and ritual but the Catholic Church does not seem to encourage independent thought (every time we participate in a COC session I usually pick up a Bible and some other academic book within a few days, last week I read through a part of a history of Christianity and the some readings by Hunter S Thompson, there has to be a connection somewhere), also I'm not sure strangers are welcomed at St Michael's (but there was about 250 people packed in there), and it was hard to not miss the "life" message being promoted (this would not have been too unusual except for the presence of military personal, two young privates marched up the offering in this weird "hey, there's two army ladies in the house" moment that took away the sense that we were in church and not in the middle of an occupation).
Overall, I enjoyed the show, the pomp and ceremony and the sermon. The crowd was interesting and people dressed up in many different ways (some people wore their tightest jeans, others wore khakis and collars, others wore anti-abortion messages).
It will be worth a repeat visit before Christmas.