As part of my blogging for Exploration, I wanted to interview random participants and ask them a few questions.  Here is the first interview of the weekend.

Name:  Thomas Bannister

Age:  18

Location:  Shelbyville, Tennessee

Stage in Life:  High School Senior

What brought you to Exploration?:  I told my preacher that I was interested in going into ministry and so that started the conversation and he told me it would be a good idea to come check this out.

Who was or is most influential in your sense of call?:  I wouldn’t say that it was one person but a bunch of people.  They didn’t tell me directly but they were like “hey this is probably what you need to do with your life.”

What excites you the most about the church and serving Christ?  To be honest, just going out and helping people.

What scares you the most about the church and serving Christ?  That the church might not be open to all these people that have been cast out by everyone else but we still need to reach.

What do you see as the greatest strength of the church?  The people, because church is always a community to me. Not one building. Not one guy standing in the pulpit. So that is its greatest asset that it is more than one person.

What do you see as the greatest challenge to the church?  To be 100% honest, the church itself because there are so many different denominations and sometimes people will look down on you because you aren’t a member of their denomination.  And I think that really impedes our ability to reach out to the lost and our ability to reach out to God.  Just some of the hypocrisy the church has.