More than any other of the dozens of adjustments, large and small, that we have faced moving across the country, this is undoubtedly one of the most gigantic we have to deal with.
It’s no secret that our faith is of primary importance to Bart and me. More than anything we can achieve personally or professionally, individually or together, we strive for the worship of God and the work of the gospel to be accomplished in all we do. The way we are equipped and encouraged to accomplish this work is by partnering with like-minded people around us–that is, a local church. In the church, we also equip and encourage others in their ministries, and we pool our resources to reach places we can’t go alone.
Bart and I were incredibly involved with our church in Colorado. Most of our closest relationships were there, and we invested a lot of time and energy into various ministries of the church. It certainly wasn’t perfect (no church made up of imperfect humans will ever be!), but it meant a lot to us. It was probably one of the hardest parts about leaving, so much so that it was hard not to wonder if we were even making the right decision to leave it.
Well, we have never doubted that it was the right decision, even if it was a hard one. The one fact that has sustained us through the toughest, most discouraging times of the move has been knowing that God has to have some reason for wanting us here; something to accomplish within or through us. We obviously don’t have a complete understanding of what that is yet, but we’re pretty certain that being a part of a church will be a significant part of our being here. In fact, until we find a church, we will probably not make any significant, deep relationships until we do. By the way, if you’re keeping track, so far the Taylors have zero close relationships here so far.
We hit the ground running when we got here, and we’ve been visiting churches each of the eight weeks we’ve been here. Having absolutely no leads here, nobody to ask about churches, we’ve been blindly searching via the internet and cold calling churches that sound reasonable from what we can discern online. During that time, I feel like my thoughts and expectations have changed half a dozen times. I know I’m guilty of assessing each church we visit at a high analytical level–how are they organized? How do they interact with visitors? What’s happening behind the scenes? What ministries do they have? How have they prepared for this service? On the other hand, I am also there ravenously hungry for some basics–who here might be our friends? Where are people our age? Where do we fit in? And, one of the most interesting questions I find myself asking, am I needed or wanted?
I could make a million observations after eight weeks of church shopping, way more than I can address here. I could probably write an entire book about everything we’ve felt and struggled with as we’ve shared our different experiences at places. Some things we’ve agreed on, but a surprising number of things we haven’t seen eye to eye over. I guess one of the things we struggle with is trust. We gave so much at our previous church, and we expect to give as much again. Since we are dealing with imperfect humans, there’s always the possibility of something bad happening; this has happened before and is bound to happen again. We aren’t trying to protect ourselves from it, just trying to make sure we’re in a place that’s the right fit for us with as much as we anticipate investing into it.
Another significant issue is location. We visited a number of churches close to us, but they just seemed to be lacking something we were looking for. We expanded our search and found some better places, churches that seemed a bit more vibrant and meaningful, but some of them are a little further away. That could be challenging if we went for something during the week, as evening traffic is a nightmare here. Furthermore, we have no idea where we will permanently locate after we are done renting here. Do we pick a church that’s close now and drive from wherever we land? Do we pick a church regardless of location and either drive later or pick our place of residence to be moderately convenient to both work and church? That’s an answer neither one of us has any idea about.
In a way I wondered if we would just know the right church when we found it, but so far, even finding a few good ones, this hasn’t been the case yet. At present, there are two churches we’ve liked well enough to visit multiple times, but neither are a for sure slam dunk just yet. We’ve started to carefully get to know them a little better and see if we can tell where God is leading us. We also haven’t ruled out visiting other new churches if we come across them. We don’t want to take it lightly, but we don’t want to way overthink it, either (which we’re both too good at doing). And while we also don’t want to rush the decision, we also are getting tired of making no new relationships and having nothing to be involved with. But we’ll be best off if we are patient and let God show us where He wants us to be.
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