Church Hunting Commiseration

Dear Pyg,

I don't know why you gotta be so racist against Oompa Loompas.

But in all seriousness, I feel your pain in the church hunt. This is one of the most trying aspects of a move - cuts deepest in the heart. I feel like our most recent church hunt worked out better than ever for us.

There are plenty of criteria one can use to choose a church: the preaching, the programs, the population size, the praise music, the other things that start with "P." (hmmm . . . you could also include permissiveness, predestined status, political agendas . . . what else you got?) Once upon a time, I was a big bad high schooler and I was pretty much the world's leading expert on judging churches by all of these rubrics. I was so good at judging them, that in fact, not a single church in my hometown could earn my allegiance. I grew up in a city that holds 4 of the 10 largest churches in the country, all in one city folks. The yellow pages has over 3,100 churches listed. Pretty superior, was I not? ;) Since no one church could earn my loyalty, I went to 15 christian events each week across different faith communities to piece together a spiritual experience that could satisfy my grand spiritual appetite.

Please tell me my sarcasm is coming through clearly enough here. I was ridiculous. God convicted me hardcore of my ridiculosity [word? word!] in college, and it still took me years to repent, heal, course correct.

When we moved to Berkeley, my conviction was put under pressure as there was a lot of nonsense calling itself church that I could judge. But God put Bart and Katie Garrett in our path and we got swept up in the Christ Church East Bay church plant and kind of didn't have a choice but to dig in whole hog. When we moved to Maine, we found ourselves in one of the nation's [I feel like depending on the stats you use, different pastors boast this claim] most un-churched regions. There just were not many options to choose from. After church hunting for awhile, I was feeling discouraged and starting to give up hope, until Manny did one more search online and suggested we visit North Harbor.

After our first visit, I was underwhelmed. I was underwhelmed by the preaching, the praise music, and welcome we received was about as warm as I was warned to expect in the frigid north (an extra hard hit for a Texan). BUT, something in my gut, I call Him the Holy Spirit, told me, "these are people you could do life and grow with." And so after a few more attempts, we decided we could stand to settle on the preaching/music/hospitality fronts and commit ourselves to the people. And it instantly paid off.

Except it didn't. It took months, maybe a year, before I started to feel like I was connecting with the people of the church. The church had organized dinners for 6, random mix ups of dinner parties that allowed people to get to know each other better. And over the dinner tables of John Schanck, and Ray and Hannah Whitney, while there wasn't anything profound or dramatic that transpired, there was that subtle, simple sense that we were welcome and there was something special about these people. And that simple sense has continued to grow in truth the more I get to know those folks and the rest of the crew at our church. I believe Church is about humans growing together towards Christ. That growth requires commitment on the front end, which is super hard when you've got your critical thinking hat on trying to decide where to commit. But instead of anything you see upfront, my advice is to look around you. Embrace the Awkward, as I always tell folks at our church. Find out if the people who attend are growing in Christ, bearing fruit.

May you find a great place for your family to grow!

Love Your Roommate for Life,
zoe faith