| rev:text
| - Writing a review for a church experience is difficult as spirituality is quite personal. That being said, I am writing as a former member of ICLV. I will attempt to provide a balanced view of my experience. I started attending the church in 11/2014, not too long after moving to Las Vegas. The people that I met were friendly and I enjoyed the positive messages shared by Pastor Paul and Pastor Denise. The population of the church was multicultural and I appreciated the diversity. There was a "come as you are" philosophy which allowed people to dress more casually if desired, which was refreshing. The music consisted of Christian songs being performed by a band and vocalists, so if you are looking for a choir this is not the church for you. I was fine with music (although I do love a good choir!) and I enjoyed the service so I began to attend on a regular basis.
I had been at ICLV for about a year when I started to have issues with the services. I became frustrated that Pastor Paul frequently spent so much time on worship (music), testimonials, offerings and personal anecdotes that he did not have adequate time to present the message for the day. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy music and testimonials but there should be an allotted time for that. It was annoying to hear Pastor Paul repeat the same personal/family stories that I had heard before but then claim to be out of time for the important information. I come for the Word, presenting ways to take God's light out into the world. The sermons were becoming increasingly disjointed and rushed, almost like an afterthought. There was also pressure to increase offerings over and above the usual for the new Prayer Mountain location, which I was not comfortable with. These factors were interfering with my experience but I was still enjoying the abbreviated lessons that I did receive enough to stick with it.
The incident which led me to leave ICLV occurred on a Sunday in May 2016. I had enjoyed the sermon that day and decided to approach Pastor Paul to introduce myself and share my feelings and experiences at ICLV. I had never done that before. I waited to speak with him behind a man with his small son, about 10 minutes or so. I introduced myself and said I had enjoyed the message and Pastor Paul appeared to be happy to meet me initially. I was about to begin what I had come to say when he abruptly asked "Have you met my wife?" and pointed to Pastor Denise, who was conversing with another member. I said "no", feeling confused at the interruption. He said "You should go and share with her." He walked away and just that quickly I was dismissed. There was no explanation provided for his departure, no attempt to introduce me to Pastor Denise since she was clearly speaking to someone else at the time. I was left standing there. I saw that he was chatting with someone else immediately after so apparently he wasn't in too much of a hurry. It was clear that he had no interest in knowing who I was at all. I was shocked by the blatant disregard for me as a person. I was extremely disheartened by the way that I was treated. I expected more from the Pastor of my church. I walked out of ICLV that day and have not returned.
For those of you who are searching for a church, I recommend that you visit ICLV yourself. What does not work for one may be a perfect fit for another. There were positive aspects of my experience, but I ultimately determined it was not the church for me.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)