For day 2 in this series of posts on "where I'm at," I will put down some thoughts on church. This is a difficult one to assess, and I'm also a little leery of publicly divulging too much for fear of being misunderstood. But, you know me, so here goes.
We are currently involved in our church in regular Sunday morning attendance, we are greeters once a month, and we have recently begun participating in a weekly home group. We really like the couple who host the home group, and have actually started to develop some relationships with a few others in the church. Oddly enough we have been feeling a little less than thrilled with the overall "feel" of the church lately though - and it has nothing at all to do with the people we've gotten to know better.
Jane has always struggled with fitting into a larger church. While I don't have quite the same difficulty, it does have its challenges. However, there just seems to be this "vibe" that we've been feeling develop lately. There seems to be this 'rah-rah' atmosphere, and in spite of the supposed 3dm "missional" mindset espoused, there is a real old-school evangelical feel to everything. It also seems a lot of ministry is "popularity driven," which is not only a real turn-off to us, but I also believe is very church-centric rather than kingdom-centric. There doesn't seem to be much of a "least of these" concern, but more of an elitist attitude. I don't know if it's intentional or not, but I don't much care for it.
Fortunately Jane and I are also involved in a weekly Bible Study with a couple who lead a totally different type of church. We feel much more in tune with these people, but we are also not sure we could go back to a church so similar to the one we used to be in (as far as size, culture and location).
This leaves us feeling we are in about the same place we've been in for over 2 years now. We are somewhat homeless as far as church goes. We tossed around giving C2G another try, or even Fellowship Missionary. C2G seems to be more our kind of people, but it is also a bit odd at the same time. Fellowship is very close to our house, and we've rubbed shoulders with a couple of leaders there who seem like-minded, but it's even larger than Grace. They would at least have some ministry opportunities geared more towards our neck of the woods, but...
I wish we could find a small group of people (a church of under 100) that were somewhat similar to us, and where we could contribute. Not a "churchy" church, but people who really wanted to follow Jesus. I mean, I know there has to be such a place. Doesn't there?? Shoot, we were in a church back home a few weeks ago, and we easily could have helped out leading worship there, if not in other ways. There have got to be places around here like that. I'm not sure how to find them though.
So, that's where we are. I don't really know where it is, and it's not much fun, but... I guess it's a part of the journey.