Finding a new church has never been this difficult until I moved out of the South!! Once I graduated college, I moved to Virginia and found a few great churches. However, I was getting married soon and would be moving to West Virginia. On Sundays, I started driving up to John's house (about an hour away) and we began searching for a church together. We found one we loved! It was a good size, offered a wonderful children's program, sound doctrine, good music, and best of all-a teacher! The pastor did not have loads of energy and was a little monotone, but he taught the Bible. He was honest and was not scared to speak the Truth. This was great. We were excited.
In December, we finally bought our first home together and moved to Berkeley Springs, WV. It is a small town and a wonderful location. However, it is about 50 minutes from the church we loved. We started the journey of looking for a "home" church. There were a total of three Southern Baptist Churches in the area. When we pulled up to one of the churches, we were the THIRD car. This would be okay for just us, but we have a child that needs to fellowship with children. We went to another church and it was so laid back, even the preacher was in jeans. However, we told each other to look past the attire and see how the teaching was. WOW!! As soon as we got in the car, John and I looked at each other and agreed that this was the worst preaching we had ever heard. I cannot remember exactly now what he thought he was preaching on, but we got home and immediately began to look at scripture. We discussed how incorrect the preacher was. Needless to say, that was not the church God was calling us to.
We continued our search and decided to expand our denominations. I had already looked for a Founders church. This was where my heart truly was and where I wanted to be, but the closest Founders church is about two hours away. So, that was a no go. Then I started looking at PCA (Presbyterian Church of America). John was a little sceptical, because he had only been to Southern Baptist Churches; however, in college, I went to a wonderful PCA church. However, there was only one PCA church near us. The church was less than 10 years old. It was still in the process of raising funds for a building. It currently met at my work, Daniel Morgan Middle School. It was wonderful. I truly enjoyed the service. The preacher was an outstanding teacher. The music was not great, but hey, they are in a school! So what was the problem? One--it was about a 40 minute drive. Two--since it was a new church using a school building, they did not offer much after Sundays, especially for children. Three-I never thought the preacher's wife could be as judgmental and negative as she was--and it bothered me.
We sat down and discussed our thoughts. We both agreed that we wanted a HOME church that was close so we could be more involved. We decided to try the United Methodist church that was beside our house. The people were so welcoming and nice. They had a good group of children. The choir was very good. So, what is the problem this time? THE PREACHER NEVER READ A SCRIPTURE!! He only talked for about twenty minutes. When he was done, John looked at me and said, "Is that it?" We were shocked.
Now, here we are still churchless. We finally decided that we needed to move back to the Carolinas to find a great church! Since that is not possible at this moment, we have decided to make the 45-50 minute drive every Sunday to go the first church we loved. It is a nice little drive, but a wonderful church family. The only problem--how involved can we be in a church that is so far away, especially when we pay $4.09 for a gallon of gas?
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2 comments:
It stinks how hard it is to find a good church community, that meets the needs of everyone. So many people come to my church, and absolutely love it, but because we don't have a big enough youth group they move on to another church. The catch 22 in that, is if all those people that have visited in the past year had stayed, we would have quite a strong youth group. So it is hard for both the churches to offer what everyone wants, and the church seekers to find what makes them comfortable all at the same time. I will say, I am appalled by a Methodist church where scripture was not even read. I can't stand that there are people who do that. If you are going to preach you need to bring it back to the Bible and offer a reason why it is God's message and not your own. I definitely agree with you on why you wouldn't go back to that church. I hope your search goes well and you will be in my prayers :)
Very well put Amber Marie
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