Adventures in Church Shopping

WOW… Finding a church has never been a hard issue in our family. Generally with each move we find some church that we love and loves us back within a few weeks. Not so with this move.

If you are involved in church ministry or are even just a member at a church pay attention to this!!!

Before we moved I was contacted by a friend of my brothers whose father is a pastor just up the road at a church that we had already found online and thought looked outstanding… We went there first and LOVED it. The music, the style, the preaching, the kids learned something in their classes etc… The first Sunday a musician that I grew up with and went to college with was there. We connected and talked etc… the District Superintendent who I grew up with his boys was there too… I just thought this had to be where God wanted us…

BUT: after 6 weeks of attending and introducing ourselves to people in the church; trying to get info on Mom’s groups through filling out the churches ‘REQUEST FOR INFO’ form and still having no one contact us and say ‘WELCOME’ to our church or here is the group we have that fits your family… We decided we should look at other churches…

So the net one we went to was a LARGE church in town. We walked in and saw the kids sign in… the director was really nice and showed us around the building etc… very comfort building etc.. but then… The pastor was on vacation and the elder was preaching on Intelligent Design… He was as boring as a school room scientist!

So today we went to a church were a deacon had invited us personally. It was a church of only about 40. Inbetween pastors etc… Nothing for the kids but Sunday School and no other kids near the age of ours…

SO… We are still searching…

SO HERE IS THE PART FOR YOU IF YOU ARE A CHURCH or a member of one… MAKE PEOPLE FEEL WELCOME!!! The churches that we have stayed at and became highly involved in previously were the ones where someone invited us out to lunch and got to know us. It goes without thinking that since a church is all about building a relationship with Christ that it begins with building relationships with each other… SO BE FRIENDLY! Invite people out to lunch. Make them know you really are glad they were there.

I have been very disappointed at what I saw or didn’t see from the church that we loved… We really did love it and were really hoping that it would love us back but it didn’t. It was cold. Grant it this is a very transient area and when you answer that you didn’t move here for the military you have just made yourself a bit of an outsider.

So please pray with us that we will find a church that is outgoing, friendly, believes in reaching the lost, is passionate for the orphans and widows, helps my children learn who they are in Christ, help Mandy find a group of mothers with children to connect and ‘walk the mall’ with…