Church Family

When Greg and I were preparing to move, one of the things we had to do was say good-bye to our church family. I guess you could say I believed our church family to be pretty unique. It honestly felt like family. Everyone knew everyone, no one ever really fought, and if they did it was never made public, but handled privately. We never bickered over the color of the carpet, or whatever. We were very close. The church would do things together, go to swim parties, skating parties, join a soft-ball league. And if we needed prayer, there was no better place to turn than to these dear people.

The pastor was great, always preaching God's Word, always delivering challenges for new believers and more mature "meat-eaters" too. There was always a hug, a smile, a helpful hand from these loved-ones. And they really understood that the church was not the building, the church is the people. Greg and I loved ministering there, taking part in the body of Christ.

So, it wasn't easy to pull ourselves away from the 1st Baptist Church of Littleton, and I really thought it would take at least 6 months of searching around the Knoxville/Pella area to find another church we would be comfortable attending. And I thought we would never find a church body as united and loving as the one we just left.

Praise God, I was wrong. The very 1st church we visited was one such church. We were welcomed with bright smiles, a wonderful message, and it felt like home. I guess you could say I expected all messages to be good, I mean for the last 5 years I had sat under a wonderful preacher who devoted much of his time preparing the sermon. I guess I thought any preacher would do that. My brother is also a pastor and a couple of my uncles are as well. I know they each spend a good chunk of their week preparing the message. I soon learned though by visiting other churches that some messages just didn't make sense.

The second church we visited was sad. The people seemed tired, kept to themselves, and the pastor gave me the willies. Greg thought maybe it was the mustache....I don't know. At any rate, Greg and I left there with no intentions of coming back for the evening service. One church we tried felt like a rock concert. We could hear the music from the parking lot! Once the service started, they dimmed the lights and the band played so loudly, you couldn't hear yourself singing along. No one knew we were visiting because it was so large. No one talked to us, the message was alright but not great, and it just wasn't a good fit for us.

It was at this church that my oldest child, Isaac, got this glazed over look while sitting there. Chloe started dancing in the aisle (I'm sure because of the combination of cookies she ate and the "rockin' music!") And Jeremy just sat there plugging his ears. I'm sure if the lights had been on, we would have stuck out like sore thumbs. Now, I'm not saying this is a bad place to worship, it just wasn't for us. It was that night that I told Greg, "I feel so dry, we need to go back to Berean (The first church) for their evening service!" We did and it was so wonderful!

We looked around at churches for 5 weeks or so before deciding we would like to attend Berean more consistently. We began to get to know the people, spend time with them outside of church, and learned about their doctrinal statement and church covenant. All along the way, this loving church family accepted us with open arms. They really went out of their way to make sure we felt comfortable there. After a few weeks, I couldn't imagine us going anywhere else, and I started to realize we had found a new church family.

So, Sunday night, we met with the Pastor and deacons about becoming members and last night, we were voted in. We are now members of Berean Baptist Church! We are excited to see how God will use us here! Will we be a toe? An eyebrow perhaps? Maybe a finger? God used us in so many ways in Illinois, and we're thrilled to plug in here wherever we can. We're also excited to get to know these brothers and sisters better. We are thankful that we've only been here 5-6 months and already are members of a wonderful, God-believing church. Am I expecting it to be perfect? No, all churches have their problems. But, I do believe this church is united and loving enough to handle those problems the right way. I'm so thankful it didn't take us as long as I expected to find a new church family!