Wandering in the Desert

Sometimes I wonder why it is such a struggle to find a church.  I remember when I used to be on staff at a church,  I was always surprised at the people who would say things like, "We could just never get connected," or "No one really reached out to us."  I knew our church was friendly, so I didn't understand why they couldn't find community with us.

But here we are, 8 months out from me losing my job, still struggling to find a church.

We've been attending the same church for most of the time since we left, but just couldn't decide if it was the right place for us.  It's not that the people weren't friendly.  They were very friendly.  And it's not that our kids don't love it.  They do.  We just can't seem to get connected.

Maybe we thought we'd fall right back into our old "friend circles" (since we were members there for 10 years before we moved to Georgia).  But that hasn't happened.  We see familiar faces, and everyone is nice, they speak to us, but we aren't "in" if that makes any sense at all.  Maybe I'm just rambling.  Maybe I don't exactly know what I'm expecting.

Invites for lunch after church?

Get togethers with the girls?

People wanting us to join their small groups?

I don't know.

And maybe that's the majority of the problem.  I don't know what I want.  Or Mike doesn't know what he wants.  Or together we don't know what we want.

We thought maybe we were just wanting a service with a more contemporary flair (we've been in that style of church for over 9 years, so we thought maybe that's what we needed).  And yet, we visited a church for the last two weeks that has a very contemporary flair and it wasn't "it" either.  And honestly there was a much stronger sense of the Spirit of God moving at the less contemporary service.

Clearly the music style has nothing to do with it.

The girls love the church we've gone to for the last two weeks. And the people are very friendly. Someone even invited us to join their small group (on our very first visit, and it was a Facebook friend, no less! . . . Thanks Todd.)

And yet, I still feel lost.  I miss my community.  And at the core, that's my problem.  I know it is.  I'm just not really sure what to do about it.

All that to say, perhaps I am being overly transparent today.  I think I'm just tired of wandering.  I don't know how the children of God did it for so many years.  (Jesus, I'd like to not do it that long, please. It's exhausting.)