Visited a New Church Today

As my huge blog readership knows, we have been at the same church since September 2002. It is a medium sized church, meeting in a school, and is made up of many 20-somethings, and a very few people over 40. Not that there's anything wrong with 20-somethings, or people who haven't read the Bible (not necessarily the same thing), but after 5 1/2 years of going to a church where there are few to no people on the same road as us, and after 5 1/2 years of sermons, I mean "talks," directed toward very young Christians, I thought maybe we should check out another place.

There is a church about 15 minutes from here where we know a LOT of people -- more actually than the church we have attended for 5 1/2 years. The reason we know so many people is that there are many homeschoolers who are in a similar place in life as we are. Also, our beloved basketball team has many families who attend this church.

I grew up in a fundy church, which although it had its problems, it definitely gave me a church home. We shared so many things with the people in our church, and we met Sunday mornings, Sunday evenings, and Wednesday nights. So, the people we went to church with were part of our lives more than just Sunday morning. At our present church, we rarely if ever see church people outside of Sunday morning, and I find life to be so busy that I must spend time with people I am going to see naturally, due to school or activities.

So, this morning we visited the new church. I had heard they have a special needs Sunday school class, and I was keen to take advantage of this for The Little Guy. He is with us, pretty much 24/7, and I am needing a break. Maybe that sounds terrible to those of you who only go to church to worship God and give of yourselves. But I prayed this morning that I would not continue to feel so alone at church. We were greeted warmly and accompanied to the sunday school rooms. I saw numerous people I know. I felt comfortable at this church.

Sunday school was looming large and scary for The Webkin Queen, but I had determined if the greeter offered us Sunday school I was going to take advantage of it, because I wanted to accept what was offered. TWQ was really sad and really did not want to go into the classroom, and the teacher brought one of the other girls out, who was very friendly and kind, and TWQ told me afterwards that she was really glad I had made her go. This was a great relief to me -- I want her to have some experiences with other Christian friends, and I think she can have that at this place.

I can't remember my pseudonym for my 12-year-old, let's just call him "Eli." His class was a little different. His teacher had some pretty black and white beliefs and Eli came out with some questions about whether or not Catholics are really going to hell because they pray to Mary. Ouch. We all went out to lunch and discussed the things he heard in his class and I think it ultimately was a good thing for him to be exposed to that stuff as long as we were able to debrief it. Not sure it's going to be a good thing for him to be exposed to it week-in and week-out. We shall see.

The older two kids went to our regular church, but my daughter is keen to go to the new place next week when I mentioned that I had seen one of her basketball teammates at the new place.

Maybe we sound really shallow, but I suspect that the only ones reading this know that we are not. Life is busy, and in order for me to be able to contribute to a church, I am going to have to be somewhere where I can build relationships that are not just separated from every other aspect of my life. It's too hard to be so spread out, with homeschooling the kids and having THAT group of acquaintances and friends, and dealing with special needs and having THAT group of acquaintances and professionals, and being on sports teams and dealing with THOSE groups of acquaintances and friends. Sounds just so lovely to me to have some of those groups overlap.

We're going back next week.

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