Passed the West Monmouth Baptist Church near the Freehold Raceway Mall yesterday on our way to a birthday party in Old Bridge.

Kenny made the point again of telling me that he wants to visit that church some Sunday morning. I consented and just need to remember sometime, at the appropriate time.

He claims to remember our last visit ... at least two years ago. Of course, he is interested in the downstairs nursery. "Underground", he calls it.

In fact, I've been there twice. The church has always intrigued me, beckoned almost, tucked away between the Mall and Battle of Monmouth Battleground.

The parking lot is reasonably full on a Sunday, late into the early afternoon. When I met someone at a Bible study who attended that church, I invited myself one morning to see what the appeal was. I mean, she raved about the service. Said it wasn't like going to church at all. I guess she meant by that, that the service wasn't boring. And her pastor was funny, witty and really explained the Scriptures, she said.

So, I brought my blue "leather" NIV with the silver-edged pages and my name in script along the bottom. Maybe if this weren't the NE, I would have brought a KJV. But, to be honest, I didn't own one at the time (hard to believe) and I had no idea how popular the KJV still is in some circles. I guess that's why I didn't own one. Turns out that the NIV was the right choice for this Baptist church.

I suppose the humongous black speakers on stage should have clued me in about how loud the worship music was going to be. But they didn't. I think the associate pastor played electric guitar. And, yes, there was a drum kit on stage as well. Fortunately, the kids were in the nursery because their eardrums would have ruptured. And I was sitting in the back.

I was surprised at how little Scripture we looked at. Just three or four verses from John's Gospel. Nothing else, at all. Some of the music was based on Scripture. I mean, we sang from a standard Baptist hymnal, American Baptist, I think. I wrote down the ISBN because I was going to buy one ... I liked the songs so much. But I never did because I would have had to buy a box of 20 or something.

The second visit, I don't remember things being much different. I think the pastor had changed in the meantime. But the people were just as friendly as before. I actually went with the purpose of getting information about their mid-week service. But I haven't the guts to go. More than anything, I'm afraid that my husband would find out.