A Church Home?

It would not be a stretch to say that our family has been in a spiritual wilderness since we left the church where my wife and I met. I’m not going to discuss that departure in detail–at least not at the moment. I had written about the experience at one point in the past, and I felt that it was too negative to leave on an “open” blog, so I deleted it. In a nutshell, the pastor left the church we loved, we had a good interim pastor, and then the elders called a pastor who chased most of the people (and their ministries) that we loved out of the church–and celebrated (no kidding) their departure. This included firing my mother-in-law who was secretary of the church (this actually happened at the end of the experience).Since then, we’ve been drifting between churches…about five years in total. We’ve spent some time at a church called Five Oaks, in one of two locations (it was a church trying to begin multiple sites). Although I had strong ties to that church from my previous experiences (I had left that church to find a multi-generational church, where I met my wife), we had a hard time getting involved in the church (partially because of our schedule which includes my wife working EARLY in the morning and my own schedule as a high school choir director) and at times my wife felt like she didn’t measure up–materialistically–to other women in the church (the demographics skew a bit higher in that church). I’ve never felt that, but then again, I have no issue riding to a church on my motorcycle in leathers. Then we added to the problem–we moved about 11 miles away from our old house, and it makes all the difference in the world. We tried to keep driving to Five Oaks, and we tried the sister campus that was equally as far as the “mother” church. The satellite church simply closed its doors this fall. We were saddened by this, as we were trying to become more involved, but there were things that drove us crazy, too (the worship leader was “pitchy,” and that’s a struggle if you’re a high school music teacher).We were also attending the church where my brother-in-law and mother-in-law were occasionally attending church (where my brother-in-law is the worship leader, and my mother-in-law has become the church secretary). There is only one small evangelical church (it’s a plant )in our new town, and it wasn’t a good fit, either. It has about 4 cars outside of it every Sunday morning–meaning no “services” for children.We also tried attending a Covenant Church north of our town–which felt a bit like the church where my wife and I met, but there was nothing for our twelve year old other than confirmation–and he hates school in general.We’re a spiritually needy family. We’re in need of a church home. But we’re also in need of a church where our twelve year old can make connections, and where our three year old can get involved…not to mention our yet unborn baby boy. We need a place we can get involved–in the future–and a place where we can worship and heal.To complicate matters, my stepson’s father is an atheist, and he drives those beliefs into his son. I remember my stepson, at age six, wearing a WWJD bracelet and taking it off in the car as we dropped him off, because “his Dad didn’t believe in God and it would make him mad.” Yes, my stepson was MORE than aware of this at age six. Well, his ambivalence–if not sure distaste–for anything involving God or church has become increasingly more powerful over the last years. And to be frightfully honest, both my wife and I have been less than shining examples of what it means to live as a Christian. And we’ve been church hopping to an extent–and my stepson has simply grown weary of anything church.So my wife and I had a big argument (not really a fight) over church two weeks ago., and we questioned what we wanted to do and what our intent was. My wife tends to take her time making a decision (she’s in the process of choosing a new sink faucet right now, and it’s going to take some time for her to settle), whereas it takes me very little time to assess a situation and make a decision (not that the decision is always right, because it isn’t). We’ve made a couple of bad car decisions because of communication issues between my wife and I with this process. She ultimately defers to me, and I’m trying to discern her intent, and we buy something that maybe we shouldn’t have bought (both of our current two cars–although both continue to work out). So in this case, I’ve not been making decisions and waiting for her feedback. Ultimately, we decided to visit a different church last Sunday, a church that we haven’t visited for several years. It isn’t far from Five Oaks, but it has a different clientele. It’s another big church (in a new building) whose previous space issues were one of the reasons that kept us from considering the church before. The new church solved those issues. Within five minutes of arriving, my stepson saw a friend from his school (remember this is a 20 minute drive), and his attitude towards being at the church changed immediately. My three year old loves school, and the Sunday school is geared towards a common lesson in all grades (there’s a curriculum). The sermon was really strong (to be honest, we never had any issue with Five Oaks’s pastor or sermons), and the music was good–on pitch. In fact, one of the songs was a common song at the Five Oaks Satellite Church, and although it’s a bit mean to say, it was amazing to hear the song on pitch–a completely different experience. Then my stepson asked to come to the Wednesday night youth group (a few days earlier, when we mentioned that he would be getting involved in a youth group, he reacted very poorly to that suggestion).My stepson went to youth group on Wednesday night…and it had an impact. I don’t have the details, and we’re still dealing with a surly pre-teen at times, but he wants to be at that church.Therefore, so do we.I also ran into another displaced friend from that original church this week. Her family (her husband and her) have been “ungrounded” in a church as well, even though they’ve attended a couple churches in that time period as well. I mentioned our experience at this other church, and she mentioned that was how she and her family had ended up at our original church–their children wanted to attend that church.It was further confirmation that we’re doing the right thing.My wife and I want to serve, and I actually know a number of the staff members of this new church. But for now, with a baby coming, a twelve year old, and a three year old–not to mention odd hours–we’re going to be in the “consuming” mindset for a while. But we’re not going to be hopping any more.I think we’ve finally–after 5 years of the wilderness–found our church home.