Albuquerque First Baptist Church

If you are looking for a perfect church then you won't find it. It was my experience that the people are genuine and sincere, there is always that one exception. However, the leadership are rude, arrogant, and entirely too self-absorbed. It is a sad reflection of a pastor trying to build his personal empire rather than the kingdom of God. Personally, I passed on this one.

The service started with a request for money, while I understand that churches do need money, it prefer to hear about it at the end of the service... this was NOT the worst part, however.



The topic was the passage in Mathew where Jesus says not to judge, and in Luke where he describes the Pharasee's as hypocrites. Right after telling everyone that we were all sinners in the same boat, he singled out gay people and called their love and commitments wrong. This caused myself and a teenager, and a family to all leave in tears. Perhaps the pastor needs to look in the mirror.

If you looked in the dictionary under "awful" you would find a picture/definition of Albuquerque's First Baptist Church. The church recently completed a move to the West side after being downtown for 150 years. I attended several of their worship services and found the people unfriendly, the facilities uninviting and some of the worst music of any church in Albuquerque. The music was non-energetic, was not compelling enough to want to join in singing and the musicianship was sloppy. I do not know how you can put three really good worship songs together then try to destroy each song by lack of good transitioning, poor tuning and a sense that what was really happening was a church version of "American Idol." None of these folks would be on their way to Hollywood.



Really the music was fantastic compared to what happened next - the "Big Man" came out and started into one of the worst stories to introduce the sermon topic that I have ever heard. The story was offensive and it was very hard to tell what it had to do with the Biblical passage. The preacher seemed ill-prepared and sarcastic. Never a good combination when you should be prepared and excited about sharing the greatest story every told.



My advice to you is that if you are looking for a worship time that is exciting, relevant and helpful DO NOT GO to First Baptist Church of Albuquerque. That is a shame because it seems they have so much potential.