16/365 Everyone's not like me?

When I was still in Junior high, I had the chance to spend the weekend with a good friend. We hung out all day Saturday, spent the night at her house that night and on Sunday I was invited to go to her church. Since I had been attending church as long as I could remember, I had no problem with this.

I was in for a surprise.

Her church was maybe 1/20 the size of mine. My church regularly had 800-1200 people in attendance on the weekends - more for bigger events like Easter, Mothers Day, Christmas. In my church, there were enough children for every age to have it's own class. So I was always with a group of my peers, sometimes as many as 30 in one room - all my age. We rarely got multiple ages together unless it was a special event. 

It was similar to school, each grade had it's own class and some of the larger groups had multiple classes. There were also several meeting times - a 4th grade 9:30 class and a 4th grade 11:00 class. When we added Saturday night services, that was a whole additional group of kids. So even the kids who were the same age who regularly attended church might never see other kids in their same age group!

I just assumed all churches were like this. 

My friends church was much smaller.  A weekly congregation had closer to 200-300 people. Sunday school was all the children between the ages of 4-18 in one room together and there were about 12 kids in that group. There was on 7th grade class. 

It was quite the eye opening experience. It felt strange - almost like being at a family get together. Not like going to church.

Now I wonder if that isn't the way that church is supposed to feel like.....