Here is a website which shows how first time visitors went to a brand new church and how they thought about it.
I’m a former Free Will Baptist, I still attend a Free Will Baptist church because (as far as I know) there aren’t any churches that are “just plain Christian” without the stupid doctrines, and I like to hear a good message now and then, and fellowship with my family.
IME, having grown up in the Baptist church, you don’t get hassled or get tracts shoved in your face. You merely get welcomed and at the end of the service there’s a very subtle “call to the alter”. No one knows who goes up or doesn’t because the rest of the congregation keeps their heads bowed and eyes closed during the alter call. At least they’re supposed to. The alter call only lasts a few moments and, at least in the family church I attend, rarely does anyone go up, so it’s a few moment of the preacher offering anyone who’d like to to come up, and then a dismissal prayer and then it’s meet and greet at the door and you’re done, in like Flynn, no one gets hurt :D.
If you’re a regular attendee, especially if you’re a long lost family member who spent the previous 40 years in the “frozen great white north” like I did, the most you’ll get if you miss a Sunday is “we missed you last Sunday”. Guests don’t normally get hassled beyond “we’re glad to meet you/have you visit”.
There’s no crazy talking in tongues, no pressure, no laying on of hands, no snake handling. There are good preachers and bad preachers. But what’s a good preacher to one Christian, may not be a good preacher to another. I can’t even begin to GUESS what type of preacher would either bore, or conversely interest an atheist.
I also used to occasionally attend a Baptist (not Free Will if I recall) church in Anchorage, it was HUGE! Couple thousand members? No one notices or bugs you if you’re there, not there, attend regularly or haphazardly. And there were no tracts or hard sell tactics there either.
If you’re interested, you should be able to find one that doesn’t hassle you or try to shove stuff down your throat.
I’ve also been to a church in Sutton Alaska (a little north of Palmer-Wasilla) where pot smoking was part of the service…so there ya go! 
Don’t be surprised if the members are uuhhhmmm… more than entusiastic for your visit. They need a new influx, and they might play it up for visitors and try to “ignite the holy spirit” in their missionary position and mandate.
One of the reasons my parents stopped going regularly was because the church was putting on skits during service practically every Sunday. And they were terrible. But apparently enough people liked them that they’re still doing them sometimes.
Some reasons:
You might be Catholic, but feel unable to partake of Communion for your own personal reasons (if you have sins you haven’t repented, for example - you are supposed to take this very seriously and police yourself, there isn’t a quiz or anything).
Also, you might be a Christian or member of another religion, and want a religious blessing because you are pro-blessings, but Communion is, for Catholics, the definition of being a Catholic so it is not available to non-Catholics (of course, anyone is welcome to become Catholic if they want, NO PRESSURE!) Now, in some Protestant churches, Communion is seen as more of a symbolic sharing, and everyone is welcome to partake. This is actually a very political issue because some non-Catholic Christians think Catholics are being all snooty by not offering universal Communion, so I have tried to keep it as general as possible. There could be a whole Great Debate about this (and there probably has been).
This later one is more common at something like a wedding, where one might reasonably expect that a significant number of guests might not be Catholic.
Despite the fact that we are always spouting off about our 2,000 years of tradition 
in reality the Church periodically decides to emphasize different things or mix things up (I think to keep the Vatican busy) so some hard-liners in the clergy won’t support the arms-crossed-blessing and tell folks to stay in their seats. The entire congregation gets a general blessing at the end in any case.
Haha… that cracked me up.
I can’t stand guitars, drums and flower child-y dance n sing along in any church service. Since my family is very religious I occasionally still have to go to services and pretend that I, minimum, still pray in times of need. My old church became hip and it’s just not the same.
Father Michael is a 70 yo man from Ireland who was making the point that he going to run his church his way. Nothing “hippy” about it.
I just want to point out the utter ignorance of the latter statement.
Carry on.
mmm
I can’t either, but feel churches need to offer a variety worship styles. One Sunday I was displeased with the music thinking ‘‘I don’t want blasted with the same thing as everywhere else.’’ I decided I should get out of the way of what God was trying to do there and go someplace else with a style of worship I liked.
It is like some years ago that churches decided to welcome people that don’t own a suit. We need churches with both contemporary and traditional worship styles. I see growing churches following both. Some larger churches 2-3 different styles of service. Whatever a church decides to do, it needs to do it well. ‘‘Make a joyful noise unto the Lord.’’ Oh, but the details aren’t there. The lifeless singing of traditional hymns certainly fails that command.
Oh, if you DO decide to go Catholic, a quick tip: the Sign of the Cross goes, “Forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder.”
(It always feel so weird when I go to someone’s house and they say grace and DON’T make the SotC. I remember eating dinner at a friend’s house where his father was a minister. I was really embarassed when I did so at the end of the prayer, but his father just laughed, since he knew I was Catholic)