Church

When I finished last night's post, I knew that there was another thing I wanted to talk about, but couldn't remember what it was.

I remembered a few hours later.

Church. And now that I think about it, this is WAY more than a bit or a piece. It deserves it's whole own post.

I don't think I've discussed much about our church situation since I decided on March 1 that I wasn't going to go to our old church any more. (And, having just spent a fair amount of time reading through my archives, I haven't actually updated at all since then.) About mid-way through February, I mentioned to Mike that the March 1 deadline was approaching and he indicated that he felt that the church had made the necessary strides forward in terms of providing a Sunday School for the kids. The provision was basically that Mike's sister was allowed to use the nursery to read a story to the kids and then let them play until service was over. Now, I totally understand that is essentially what any church is going to do for kids who don't yet read, but I was still frustrated by the seeming lack of action by the leadership of the church.

Anyhoo, I thought about it and thought about it and continually kept coming back to the fact that I really didn't like that church. I didn't feel comfortable there, I didn't enjoy the worship (we would sing along to CDs) and I wasn't getting out of church what I felt I should be getting. So I told Mike that I would not be going to that church once February was over. I told him that he was welcome to take the girls with him to the old church, let's call it WS, and I would find some churches that looked appealing to me and try them out.

My plan was to go to one church for 4 weeks and then go to another church for 4 weeks and so on.

The first Sunday of March rolled around, and with great trepidation, I took myself off to the first choice on my new church list. We'll call it CW, to make it easy on, well, me.

I walked in and someone was there to greet me. Now, this church is HUGE. Gigantic. I was blown away by the enormity of it all, especially coming from WS, where we were in a 30x30 or so room. I went in to the sanctuary, sat down and waited for the service to begin. Worship started out with a crash of drums and guitars and singing and I ... LOST it. I started sobbing and I just couldn't stop. All of my frustrations about WS and the pain of not having Mike and the girls with me at church just came pouring out. When I figured out that I wasn't going to be able to pull it together and started to feel that I was making a scene, I left the sanctuary and ran into the lady who had welcomed me not 5 minutes earlier. She was a complete sweetheart. She gave me a hug and helped me calm down and then she gave me a tour of the church.

When Mike got home from church, we talked about how both of us were unhappy not being together at church. The next night, he came home from work and told me he would be going to the trustees meeing at WS that night and submitting his resignation. He felt that our worshipping together as a family was more important than the church we attended.

We continued to go to CW for another 3 weeks and our experiences were ... mixed. There were 2 good weekends and one less-than-good weekend.

After that, we went to another local church that we'll call NH. NH is ... interesting to say the very least. The first weekend, the pastor was away, and it was very disorganized. We sang several songs and then a girl got up and did an interpretive dance. We weren't quite sure what to make of that. At the end of worship, there was a prayer and suddenly this guy started shouting about the rocks crying out and all kinds of other stuff. It was ... interesting.

This past Sunday was our second weekend at NH and it was pretty much exactly the same as the first weekend. There was an actual conga line. Now, I am all for worshipping the Lord in whatever way moves you, but DUDE - I do NOT think a CONGA LINE is appropriate in CHURCH. And then there was another interpretive dance. And some flag waving. And, being that it was Palm Sunday, there was palm waving.

In the car after the service, Mike looked at me and said "We can be all done going there now."

And I was perfectly ok with that. The current plan is to go back to CW for Easter Sunday. The following weekend we will be in Michigan and the weekend after that I am going to New York City for a MOMS Club thing, so we'll resume the church search in May.

After that third church, I am not sure what we will do. There aren't many churches in the area that match our criteria and these three are pretty much it. Maybe Church #3 will be The One (though I doubt it, because it's the church that Mike's parent's went to and they LEFT because it wasn't giving them what they needed. They started going to WS instead.) Maybe we will have to search farther afield. I don't know. But we're searching as a family and that's all that matters.