An idea whose time has come...

1.  I am struggling with our church.  I have been for a while.  There are some people (both members & staff) that we adore.  But, we also adored our former pastor.  He left several years ago and it has not been the same.  We tried, we really did.  I can't sleep at night because I keep thinking about all of it.  I think it is time to visit some new churches.

2.  Jason is on board with visiting some new churches.  The girls are not.  They were raised in this church, they have friends, they are involved in youth ministry.  The sad thing is, they are going to choir but we have not been going every Sunday.  We go when their choir sings or when there is something going on.  I miss going every Sunday.  Sometimes when we go, we enjoy it.  Sometimes it is a reminder of some of the things that were said, people who had to get their way, people with strong opinions that differ from our own.

4.  As Jason said, "We are not feeling moved to go, we are not feeling closer to God when we go, we are not developing a greater understanding of God there."  

We are starting to let our feelings about these circumstances

taint our view of church in general.
But I would like our family to have a church home.
I would like the girls to be involved in a youth group.
I would like for us all to be nourished spiritually.
And after everything that has happened, I just don't feel that can happen at our current church.

5.  Looking for a new church home is daunting.  Mostly because of the girls.  We can't just expect them to go to the Nursery or Sunday school.  They are at an age where they may be uncomfortable and we need to respect that.
My mom attends our current church.  I love that.  I love that our girls attend the same church as their grandmother.  It just makes the whole thing seem that much stronger, closer, connected, integral to our family life.
Our current church made the decision to change the Sunday school curriculum around the time our former pastor left.  A has found the new curriculum "too babyish" and even when we were going every week P really couldn't tell us why they watched a Veggie Tales movie, how the cupcakes they made relate to the lessons they learned or how the science experiment is relevant to the Bible lessons.
I don't feel that our girls are getting the spiritual foundation they need.

6.  I am sitting here at 4am looking at websites of churches in our area.

I would like to find a Congregation with young families,

active youth ministry,

youth choir.

Those are the most important things to me at this point.

7.  I don't know if you can relate to this.  Some may be upset by this.  But I think the biggest mistake we made was getting too involved.  I served on the Christian Education Commission and the Membership Commission.  I ran the Church Nursery for several years.  Jason served on the Cemetery Commission and the Building and Grounds Commission.  We felt/feel it is important.  

But we knew too much.

We started to know different peoples' feelings about things,

although we distanced ourselves from the politics,

we were VERY aware of them.

More aware than we wanted to be.

And, I think, because we distanced ourselves from the politics we began to feel like outsiders.

8.  I made the decision, sitting here at 5am, that it is time to look for a new church home.

But then I think...it's almost Christmas...maybe we should wait...

the holidays are a hard time to start this project.

Maybe we won't get an accurate representation of different churches.

I am afraid of this happening again.

I don't want to keep pulling our girls from one church home to another.

I want them to have a stable church home that nourishes their spirit and their mind.

Maybe we should wait until after the holidays...

But, no, I think now, the season of Advent, it is especially important that we feel close to Jesus.

I think it is an idea whose time has come.