Searching for a Church

In my life I have attended 3 churches as a member. I would also include InterVarsity (IV) while I was in college.  IV may be more campus organization than church, but it had the basics that all services have in them, singing, scripture, sermon, and prayer.  The first two churches were not churches that I chose to attend.  I was still living at home so I had no say or choice in them.  I did enjoy going to them, I had a lot of friends and they both had great activities for the youth of the church.

My freshman year of college I tried to find a church to attend.  I never remembered a time in my life where I didn’t go to church so I went out searching for one.  I searched online and found one a few blocks from campus.  I don’t remember much about it, I just know that I didn’t have someone waking me up to go to church anymore and stopped going.  I also found it difficult to wake up before Noon any day of the week, let alone Sunday.

Eventually a friend asked me to go to IV with her.  I will be honest, the first time I went to IV it was overwhelming.  I had never been to anything where people worshiped like they do at IV.  It was not the “traditional” style services I grew up attending.  That ended up being the only time I went that year.  My sophomore year I started attending more regularly with some other friends who had recently started going.  After that I rarely missed a week of IV.  I loved the songs and those who know me, know how much I love to sing.  I also enjoyed that the talks (sermons) each week were relatable to what I was going through in life.  Kevin Haas has a way of making me listen.  Haas was our IV group leader.  I realized after going to IV that worship could happen in many different ways.  I had found the way I enjoyed doing it.  Church didn’t have to be about putting on a shirt and tie or following a strict structure with hymns and prayers being in the same place every week.  The point was worshiping God and receiving the Word.  If you were not getting that, then what’s the point?  The problem is I looked to find the exact same thing.  The great thing about IV is it has the same audience every week…college students.  Most churches have to relate to a much larger range of people.  For many established congregations this means the people who donate the most.  Yes, the older people in the church.  Which is understandable, but young people eventually turn old so don’t you want to build up a membership of both?

So I returned home after college to my parent’s church in Fredericksburg.  I faced the same problems, not waking up before 11 or 12 made it difficult to attend church.  There also was not a lot for TwentySomethings at our church.  Eventually the pastor’s wife asked a friend of mine to start something for young singles.  Funny side note, the Singles Sunday School class at my parent’s church was made up of people over the age of 70.  A few of us attended regularly and had a great time too.  We met at a coffee shop, would read a devotional or scripture and discuss it for around an hour.  Then I moved to Northern VA.  I’m in a new place and don’t have a church so, I didn’t go to church.  There were periods over the next 6-7 years where I felt the urge to start going.  I might even make it to church 2 or 3 weeks in a row, but getting up at 8am on a Sunday to go to the contemporary service didn’t excite me and getting dressed up for the 11 o’clock service didn’t either.  I wanted worship on my terms and if it wasn’t then I didn’t go.  Looking back I realize that was a just a lame excuse I used to justify not going.

Then one morning I was awake at 7:30am and said I might as well go to church.  I don’t know what changed but I just went.  That Sunday unlike many others a few people noticed me at church as a new person and walked up to say hello.  I went back the next week and those same people came back to see how my week had gone.  I felt like this would be a good church family, so I continued to go.  Pender UMC became my church for the next 5 or so years.  The service was structured a lot like IV was in college.  The songs were fun and eventually I got to sing with the praise band a few times.  I loved it. 

Then I moved back to Fredericksburg for a year.  I didn’t expect to be there that long so I didn’t look for a church and didn’t really attend my former church either.   If I did go to church it was only to Sunday School and that was just to get a free meal afterwards from my parents.

I eventually moved back to northern Virginia and started going to Pender again.  The pastor changed, but the service was still giving me what I needed spiritually.  It was also a relief that Ashley enjoyed it because I didn’t want to look for another one. 

Well Ashley and I moved to Fredericksburg permanently this time.  We have been searching for a church since May.  It has been miserable.  I was excited because there were two Methodist Churches within a couple miles of our house and 7 within reasonable driving distance.  I’ve always grown up in a Methodist church so we were going to try them first before we ventured out.  During the process my thought process on what to look for in a church changed.  I realized that those times when I didn’t go to church previously were not about the churches, but how I looked at going to church.  I really just didn’t to go to church so I didn’t go.  The periods where I did go to church were because I wanted to go.  I wanted to be part of the church family.  I made a lot of new relationships. 

When Ashley and I made our lists of what we were looking for in a new church there was really only one thing on it.  Did we enjoy it?  But what does that mean?  Well I think it means, did we receive the message?  Is there more than just going to Sunday Service? (i.e Choir, youth group, Sunday school, etc.)  Do I Let’s look at those questions more closely too.  Receiving the message is more than just being in a room while someone is talking.  If you are not listening then you are not receiving the Word.  Some pastors are very good at writing sermons, but if they can’t get you to listen then what good is it?  It’s just like in school; there are teachers that speak in front of a class and teachers that teach.  The ones that teach are always better.

Some of the churches we’ve looked at so far have had pieces to our spiritual puzzle.  Others have had none and some have most of them.  We’ve been to two churches that barely made us feel welcomed.  Nothing makes me want to come back more than someone not saying hello.  One church was the largest, the other was the smallest.  You would think the small church wanted more members.  Only two of the churches had pastors that kept me paying attention from beginning to end.  One of the others had a pastor that was ok, but I did notice I was day dreaming at times.  She preached amongst the congregation which always helps me stay engaged for some reason.  Those three also happen to be the ones that have the most going on with choirs, active youth groups and children’s programs, and who knows what else we’ll find.  They are also three different sized congregations.  The biggest was close 300 plus.  The smaller was 80 and the third was in between them. 

I do feel that I am putting too much weight on this decision at times.  I want a place that my wife and I enjoy going to, where we will meet new people.  I also want a place that my daughter and any future children can grow up in and have the fun I had at church.

After an evening walk with Ashley on Monday night we are going to give 3 of the churches another run.  See if maybe we missed something the first week we attended.  Hopefully we find something soon. The longer I go without finding a church the more I appreciate the churches I’ve attended in the past.  There are people at Pender, Fredericksburg, and CNU IV that have played big roles in who I have become today.  And maybe that’s another thing holding me back, how do you keep getting lucky enough to find those people over and over again.

Now for those of you who made it this far, this is probably not going to be my typical topic in my blog, but it’s an issue I am going through and others may be as well.  Also we are open to suggestions in the Fredericksburg area for churches.  If you are the praying type, say one for us as we go out and find our new church family.