Finding a Church is Tough

I've been home now for about 5 months.  The first several weeks included Christmas and New Year's and just generally trying to get around to see everyone.  Things have settled down a bit since the beginning of the year but still... I receive my mail and spend most weekends at my Dad's house in Mize.  I'm living with my friend Stik during the week while we're working.

Finding a "Base" is a challenge in itself.

Back in January I visited a friend's church south of Jackson.  It's probably a great church.  An interesting mixture of small and country and progressive.  I've only been there one time so I can't really go beyond first impressions.

I visited a church in Jackson that I really like a lot.  Lot's of college students.  Sweet acoustic coffee-shop worship.  Solid teaching and preaching.  Believe it or not it felt almost "too young" for me.  I mean, I love students and I'm generally more comfortable with them than I am with people my own age or older.  But I couldn't help but feel like I've got stuff going on in my life that's well beyond where most of them are.

Mostly I've visited another near Jackson.  I've been there 6 or 7 weeks in a row.  The preaching is solid and practical.  I like the Pastor.  The worship style suits me- mostly.  Despite the fact I've been there for 2 months and wear a name tag every week I really don't know anyone there yet.  They don't do Sunday School and it's pretty impractical for me to connect with a Men's Group that meets on Tuesday nights.  My feeling is that they try so hard to be accepting and not-pushy/pressuring that they actually don't do a very good job of assimilating newcomers.  That's a balance that most churches struggle with I think.  No one wants to feel uncomfortable ("I see we have a visitor this morning, stand up and tell us about yourself!") but no one wants to be invisible either.

So what am I looking for?  A safe place.  A place I can be known.  I don't want to feel like I have to be guarded about anything.  Those places are rare.  I've always heard that Christians are bad about shooting their wounded.  I wonder if being ignored might be worse than being shot.  I guess they used to say back in the 60's "Don't trust no one" or something to that effect.  I increasingly don't trust leaders without a limp.

Of course I want to serve.  I want to play a part in the Kingdom and I don't care if my role goes mostly unnoticed (which is not the same as being ignored).

For a long time I served on a church staff.  I had input into "how" we "did" church.  I chimed in on all those inane things like whether the announcements were first, in the middle or at the end. I had some input about our worship style.  I wonder how many times I counseled students to "worship/grow where you're planted" which is sort of a euphemism for "it doesn't matter whether it appeals to you or not- if you can't "worship and grow" there must be something wrong with your attitude."

But here I am: I have a choice.  I mean, I'll go wherever the Lord leads me but until He says "here" or "there" then I guess I get to look around.  And maybe I have an attitude too.  As long as I'm looking around I'm pretty much gonna eliminate places where I hear a lot of piano and organ music or places where the preacher yells a lot or places where there's an expectation to dress my best because it's the "Lord's Day" or the "Lord's House" (as if the other days aren't His and that temporary structure of brick and wood is His dwelling).

I've worshiped in a lot of places in a lot of different ways over the last few years.  None of those places were perfect because each place was populated with imperfect people.  So I'm not looking for perfection and I don't think it's all about me and what I like or don't like.  But I am looking for a community of fellow journey-ers who know they haven't got it figured out yet.  That's where I want to be.