The Search

We took a week off from our search because we had a visiting granddaughter. Visiting unknown churches is awkward enough without the added awkwardness of a child who may or may not find enough in the service to keep her interested--or at least still. And what if the unknown pastor should say something heretical, or just plain wrong? I don't want to have to explain to her that no, Jesus never rode dinosaurs.

This is something I love about Ben. No matter what the song, no matter whether he knows it or not, no matter if the congregation is one which barely moves their lips to sing or one which sings with gusto, he’s going to sing it loud. One of the things I was most looking forward to when visiting churches outside our home territory was having a great excuse to eat Sunday dinner in a local restaurant. Well, that hasn’t happened even once, because the churches we’ve visited have all had services too early in the morning. This doesn't seem at all fair. In other news, I posted a thing on Facebook Monday that went micro-viral. That is to say, it got quite a few comments and even some shares. It was perhaps the truest thing I've ever written (aside from those times when I've written about my hatred of bugs), and if you missed it on Monday, you can read it  here . It's not about church; it's about these two little girls. God makes a cameo appearance.

July 22 Congregational (UCC) Nope. Nopity nope nope. Not this one. In my research into denominations that I thought worth checking into, this one showed up frequently. It’s the denomination of my favorite recent ex-president, and I like their stance on many social issues. But no. It’s a gorgeous church building, with a pale blue and white sanctuary, a rose window, and a pipe organ. The musicians for the morning included a classical bassist, who played at several points throughout the service, sometimes in concert with the piano or the pipe organ. There was no “old church” smell here as in our first church —but there was a smell. It smelled of privilege , not my favorite fragrance. It’s funny. These good people were for the most part middle-aged, white, and well-to-do. While that’s a description that could easily apply to me, these are not my people. They make me itch. Their activities for the next few weeks include a jazz festival. Congregants are being urged to give ext

Now that I’m caught up with Sunday visits, I think I’ll try to post some midweek thoughts about churches in general, The Church, my own ridiculousness, and anything else that seems relevant. Some of it might be serious, but mostly not.  It’s good to write again, even for an audience of ten. You know how places like classrooms and meeting rooms and churches have unwritten but rigid seating charts? That’s another anxiety of mine— am I sitting in someone’s seat? One Sunday, I was quite sure we were doing just that. They stopped, they stared, they looked around, puzzled. What is happening to my WORLD? they seemed to think. They stumbled blindly to another seat, disoriented, and sang all the songs half a beat late. Sorry, people who usually sit there. A friend wrote this comment on a satirical link I posted about introverts in church : Have you seen the new blog by the Berrien County Ministerial Alliance? Yeah, every week a different minister/preacher/pastor posts about this

July 15 Baptist This search has lost some of its charm. The church we attended today met every item (but one) on my list, and both of the items on Ben’s list. It was just fine. Totally fine. Fine. I didn’t love it. Ben did. I’m thinking now that lists are perhaps not the best way to pick a new church. I can’t say one negative thing about this church, but it wasn’t a place that made my spirit say aaah, like a person in one of those floaty things in the swimming pool, with a cold drink in one hand. Instead, my spirit churned and agitated the water and got sucked up against the skimmer. It’s entirely possible that there’s something wrong with my spirit. The word ornery springs to mind. I will mention, though, the one thing that concerned me a bit. Looking through the bulletin, I counted a dozen or so events in the next several weeks. All but one were inward-facing: events for and about that church. A teacher training, a ministry fair, a baptism class, a family picnic

July 8 United Methodist Ben and I are both early people. If something starts at 10:00 (like this week’s church service), we aim to arrive at 9:45, and our anxiety levels increase exponentially for every minute after that. When I googled the location of this church, I misread '15 mi.' as '15 minutes,' not '15 miles.' We were both pretty anxious to find ourselves entering the building at 9:59. Not the church’s fault, but not the best attitude for us to have on visiting a new place. If you’ve read more than one of these posts, you’ve probably (correctly) realized by now that I’m just a bundle of anxieties and insecurities. This process is making them worse, but I’m giving myself a blue ribbon for sticking with it. We picked this church because several months ago, when I told a friend that my church was about to close its doors, she invited me. She’s a person with whom I agree about many things: our world view, our love of all things Outlander, ou

July 1 United Methodist Church              An observation: pastors who say “I’m going to keep this brief”—generally don’t.              We had out-of-state friends visiting us this Sunday, with two little boys who’d spent long hours in the car for two days. The next few churches on our check-it-out list were all quite a drive away, and we didn’t want the pressure of getting everyone out the door early enough to get to one of those churches. So we picked a church in town.              I don’t have much to say about this church because I really don’t want this blog to become a church-bashing site. And truthfully, there wasn’t really anything  wrong  with this place; it’s just not for us. People were friendly. No “pass the peace” during the service, so that was nice. There were some things I didn’t love--for example, I couldn’t even tell you now, not much later, what the sermon was about. However, that could be because our friends’ baby was sitting with his mama right next

June 24             Christian Reformed Church             This denomination wasn’t on my list of liberal-leaning churches, but we were drawn here by two factors: first, it's my parents’ denomination since they left the Baptist church many years ago, and we’ve enjoyed visiting their congregation. In addition, a friend told me that she’d been assisted greatly by one of the ministries of this particular church, so we decided to give it a try.             It ticked most of my boxes, and both of Ben’s—so this one is still on our list, although we’re nowhere close to being ready to commit yet. By far the best thing about it for me was the attitude of the musicians. There were several of them: an excellent pianist, a flute, two trumpets, two guitars, and three or four good vocalists. They stood on either side of the stage—well, not the pianist —not calling attention to themselves, just humbly leading.             Lots of happy people of different ages—but still very white, whi

* Since last week's posting with my wish list for a new church, I've heard from someone who occasionally cleans in her own church building. She reports that recently she found a pile of fingernail clippings in the sanctuary. I never thought I'd have to say this, but I'm adding this to the list: it's important that my future church be fingernail clipping-free. June 17 Presbyterian (USA)             We chose this church because the denomination is on my list, and because Ben was somewhat familiar with the church, as it’s the meeting place for his weekly counseling session for men with domestic abuse issues (he’s a counselor, not a counselee).             When we entered the stone-and-brick building, I noticed that peculiar smell some old churches have. I think it’s composed of velour pew cushions, mildewed plaster, and old peoples’ sloughed-off skin cells. And old people proved to be the operative phrase; Ben and I are 65 and 62, but our presence that mor