How We Found St. John's Greek Orthodox Church

At St. John's, like most other churches, it not uncommon for people to inquire as to how you ended up attending services there.

My answer?

Google.

This may seem a little unorthodox (sorry, I couldn't help myself), but it's the truth.

We quit attending Cross Point around the end of October in 2010, and while we were (and are) still going to our Community Group gatherings on Sunday nights, we had no desire to return to the Sunday morning services.  We were tired.  We were sick of contemporary church; sick of loud music, spectacular videos, and flashing lights (or if it would help set the mood, lights that slowly changed colors from a warm, energizing red and yellow theme, to a more relaxing, cool, blue/green motif).  It was all meaningless.

The music and the lights and the trendy videos could evoke an emotional response - sometimes.  When they did, we felt close to God, connected to something bigger.  When they didn't, church felt empty, dead, lifeless.

We were longing for substance.  Something that wasn't about emotions or 'feeling' close to God.  Modern church seemed like nothing more than emotional manipulation under the guise of spiritual enlightenment.  I truly believe that it was all done with the best of intentions, but that didn't really change anything.

In February, we finally decided that we had to go to church, but we had to find a new kind of church.  Not just a new church, with new people, a new band, and new songs...we needed a fundamental change in our spiritual journey.  The way we saw it, we had three options - Protestant, Roman Catholic, or Orthodox.  Protestantism wasn't what we needed, Roman Catholicism certainly wasn't what we needed, so Orthodoxy it was.

A quick Google search for 'Orthodox churches in Nashville' and I had the address for Saint John Chrysostom Greek Orthodox Church.

We went.