It felt as if I spent a day in the Philippines.  Like a log floating down the stream I wound up in the eddy of a Pentecostal church.  It was really instructive. Got invited to a Pentecostal church by a Philippina lady and went through a longish bible sermon, prayers, singing and lots of 'A-men!' and 'Halleluiah!'  They also gave me lunch and decided I needed to be Baptised.  My assertions that I had already been quite properly baptised as an Anglican were brushed aside.  They were not about to accept 'no' for an answer.  So into the bath I went.  They're really nice people and I'm impressed with how they work so hard to send money home to their families in Philippines.  I'm strongly attracted to religious people because they have found a deeper approach to life than just selfishness and materialism.  The idea of 'making a joyful sound to the Lord' is so much better than planning to succeed in business or complaining about one's life.
Party of the joy of religion is that it can take away our most basic trauma - the fear of death.  You accept Jesus into your heart and you are rewarded with an unassailable purpose AND eternal life.  I've approached this so many times since about the age of 14.  It reminds me of the humorous quote, "I have abandoned my search for truth and am now looking for a good fantasy."  Its actually an excellent fantasy in that the individual self is given up (sacrificed) into the joy of the whole - my way of talking about being 'saved'.  In Buddhist teachings the self is found to be illusory.  The Muslim mystics assert that there is only Allah.
So...I went with the flow.  I found that the flow of emotion found in praising the Lord is quite cleansing.  There was a reduction of ego going on - I wasn't really there for myself at all, but because they wanted me to be there.  Reading the bible is an excellent activity.  Where I part company with the church (any church) is that I take the truth contained in it of a metaphorical or mythological level.  Its a teaching about the pain of separation and the joy of union.  We cannot really understand God any more than we can comprehend the Buddhist concept of emptiness.  We can only make castles of words that might point to the truth.  The bible tells slaves they should obey their masters.  It has been edited ferociously over millennia to support the power of the church.  Even so, it has wonderful magical passages.
The church I attended today performs a wonderful service for the people.  There is pain and longing in their singing.  One man told me he has not seen his family for a year because he sends money home and there's no extra for a plane trip.  The church service gives them hope and the comfort of a lively supportive community.  I won't criticise their beliefs.  Life is hard enough; I would much prefer to encourage them.  So that's what I did.