Searching for a Home

When Incrediboy started preschool last fall, we enrolled him in a school run out of a church near our places of work. Along with playtime and lessons on colors, shapes, letters, and the typical fare, the kids also enjoy Bible story time and a Christian centered atmosphere. We love this, both feeling it’s immeasurably important to instill a faith-based belief system in children.

Unfortunately, we’ve also used it as an excuse to not worry about going to church so much.

The Hub and I haven’t settled on a new home church since we moved away from the city almost 3 years ago. Our previous church was wonderful. Contemporary music, lots of outreach ministries, and a brilliant pastor who possesses an uncanny gift of consistent poignancy. Most people in attendance raised their hands as they praised the Lord. I rarely did, simply because I wasn’t raised that way and it wasn’t a natural impulse of mine – but it didn’t bother me in the slightest that anyone else did. I always left church feeling restored, revived, and closer to God than when I entered.

When we moved, our commute to this church grew from 10 minutes away to 40 minutes, and it was hard to justify the distance. Plus, we felt it would be good to find a church in our new community. We have visited our previous church’s new satellite church many times, only 5 miles from us, but the Hub doesn’t care much for the pastor's style. I feel it’s important for the whole family to agree and feel at home at a church, so we have yet to settle on a new spiritual home.

Hub and I both come from a strict, old-fashioned Baptist upbringing. We stopped going to church in our young adulthood, and when we met we spent a long time trying to find a place where we both felt comfortable. We were both happy at the old church, but as we’ve been searching for a new one, our tastes in approach seem to have grown in different directions. We both seek a Nicene creed, cut-the-crap, Bible-centered doctrine, with nothing added and nothing taken away. We also prefer a more casual dress code, not being much for fashion shows. But while I really enjoy the more relaxed approach to the music – live band, more contemporary, toe-tappin’ hand clappin’ worship songs, etc. – Hub is leaning back towards the traditional Hymnal-centered music of our upbringing. Honestly, I’m not against that – the old standards are fine! I just kind of like the contemporary stuff better – I *feel* the worship more.

The music really isn’t the important part though. It’s whether or not you’re being “fed”. Is the message making a difference in our lives?

We visited Hub’s cousin’s church this weekend. It was very much like the churches we grew up in – old fashioned, very Baptist, very reserved. Surprisingly, though, not stuffy in the slightest. Most people were dressed up, but a few were dressed down and weren’t receiving shocked looks in response. The music was very traditional – typical Baptist fare. Everyone sang dutifully and reservedly. Special music was courtesy of a barbershop quartet, which was certainly not a contemporary genre, but was very enjoyable. And the sermon was no apologies straight preaching out of the clunky verbage of the King James Bible (what I was raised on, and not my preferred version). But the pastor is young, and is a very good speaker. He would direct the congregation to a passage that he would read, and had a habit of injecting “now look at me” afterwards, which kind of tickled me. He encouraged participation, and had a great sense of humor. Most importantly, he exuded enthusiasm and out & out joy as he shared the message.

While traditional, this was not the huffy stuffy Baptist service of my youth.

We are not very good Christians. But we ARE Christians, trying to be better. I'm anxious to find a church to make home, especially for Incrediboy's sake. Hub was very receptive to this atmosphere, and Incrediboy had a blast in “Bitty Church”, clutching a small Easter basket in his hand and chattering all the way to the car. And while I enjoy a more contemporary approach to Sunday Services, a return to the traditional approach roots of my upbringing wouldn’t be an intolerable thing since my family feels at home there. In fact, it felt pretty good.

We’ll see how it goes.