Just in the last few months, I felt a strong conviction to settle in to a new church home & embrace having church family, and strong Christian friends again.
This is a battle that has been going on for several years, one that I repeatedly put onhold when I would get discouraged by the places we visited.
I grew up in the Catholic church, and while I used to get so annoyed with my parents for "forcing" me to go to Mass on Sundays, and then Catechism on Wednesdays and whatever there was for special holidays, I love that church. I sometimes still find myself CRAVING the physical beauty of the Catholic Church....the stained glass, the artwork, sculptures and the classic hymns played from our upper balcony organ. The sights, the sounds, the familiarity of the words we would say every week, the prayers prayed and the sacraments that members carry out.
I still sneak off to mass once in a blue moon and just take it all in. I like to think it's a positive place to ponder the beauties God created in an ugly corrupt world.
I veered away from the teachings of the Catholic church, when I was a young teen and held a job at a local Baptist church in the nursery. I would work their nursery on Sunday evenings, and on a rotation on Wednesday nights. I fell in love with the people, mostly the children my own age & their families. I fell in love with their burning passion for Christ. I accepted salvation, and went through baptism in my high school years. I was strong with a force of strong peers. We were a group that I wish everyone could experience for themselves. Spending time with them were some of my best high school memories. (Side note...2 of the boys have went on to become pastors, and one of the girls has been a missionary over seas for a few years and is now working in education with American missionaries over there)
I fell in & out of the church during my first marriage. There were several things I was having a hard time with in that church/amongst that particular group of people. All of the people I believe were well-intentioned believers who were comfortable where they were & were approaching people who struggled with their faith in a wrong manner. And since all my peers had left me, I felt alone. It was a small church, with mostly an older following, so I didn't have anyone I could really truly team up with. I experienced a bit of negative there & it honestly made me turn away from churches, and put up a wall to keep my emotion & trust away from future adventures in finding a church. There was a lot of gossip (because one of my best guy friends would come to church & we would sit with one another, because I was going through a divorce & no one would bother to talk to me sincerely and find out why). They were rather adament that my newborn baby go to a nursery instead of in my Sunday school room, where I could feed him on demand. But the most offensive thing I incurred, and it happened repeatedly was that there was little hesitation in knocking down the Catholic Church & it's members and that struck me hard since I left the Catholic Church with no hard feelings at all.
I don't think anyone intentionally pushed those buttons for me, but rather it's just a series of battles and I had taken enough hits that I was ready to move on. And for the record, no one in that church ever bothered to reach out and ask why I quit attending. I think that reach out alone would make a world of difference in any church's growth.
Myself & the 3 kids bopped around through a few churches here & there, of varying denominations but I never could find one that just worked well for us. I still have a love of the Catholic Church but trying to battle mass with 3-4 children on my own every weekend was more than I could take. I would get nothing out of the services because all my focus was on keeping the children behaviors in check.
So about a year ago, I was still church hopping, and started in a local MOPS group. I was late to the meeting for some reason, and I had walked into the room, caught a seat and listened to the speaker who had started before my arrival. It was a guy talking about a Love & Respect couples class a local church was getting ready to start. I met some new people that day, and only attended 1 other MOPS meeting, because of timing and once because of a 911 ambulance trip with the Monster.
I convinced my husband to take this class with me. And he agreed, but he really didn't want to go. The church it was held at has an amazing childcare program and with Monster's medical needs, they never hesitated to take him, to learn about him and to adjust their system to make it safe for him.
Monster was getting ill a lot & had surgery in summer of last year, we slacked off at attendance and went along the fun ride of summer extra curricular activities.
After school started up & life slowed down, I started taking the kids to church again. But it was sporadic. We went back to the Love & Respect Class church, and I just continued to feel at peace when I was there. So funny that I happened to know several of the members, a handful were from that Baptist church I had last been a member of, and others were just people I knew from elsewhere.
Near Christmas, D-man made the choice to go to church with us, and we began doing more involved things at home. We started a bible reading plan with the kids, so we read together every evening that they are all here. They love it & it has taught me so much more about the bible.
When D had been to church a couple of times, I told him how badly I felt we needed a church home & we quickly narrowed it down to the Catholic Church I grew up in or this church we were at now. The handling of Mason, the excitement of the kids, the amount I had learned in the short time of attendance there were confirmation that we had already found our spiritual home.
In the past couple of months, we have started up the L&R class again, and the church's Next Steps class to learn more about their specific beliefs, their background, and to help put our services into effect. We also started in some small groups. Amazing little "churches within the church" if you will allow that phrase. A way to get personal connections amongst people when the attendance of a place is so much larger than you are used to.
Our small groups and our classmates and the staff of the church have been amazing to us. When I had surgery Feb 8th, they stepped it up. They are prayer warriors with passion. They did what they could to physically, in our day to day lives touch us & help where we needed it. They are the absolute best groups of people brought into our lives.
I honestly came to tears thinking about how much harder the past week would have been without them. Without a church to call home & it's people to help. So kind, so willing, so strong in their faith.
I am thankful that God has brought us to this church. I am proud to call it my church home.
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