An Eye Toward Canaan…

Note: forgive the formatting.  I’ve tried to fix it several times. 

This Sunday we’re joining our church (assuming all goes as planned).  We’ve been here long enough; it is time to become members at the place where we have invested the last year of our lives.  I have mixed feelings about our upcoming covenant with the church body this weekend.  On the one hand, the New Church is solid theologically, attempts to practice what it preaches to the best of its ability, and is learning how to adapt and “keep up” as it grows disproportionately each year.  Sure, I don’t agree with every single thing about the church or its practices, but it has many strengths (one of them being an amazing missions department and a heart for unreached peoples) and is (theologically speaking) closer to where we are than the Old Church.  On the other hand, I don’t feel nearly as strong a sense of community or love at this church in general (probably in part because of the size, and possibly because of the continual hunger for talking about doctrinal controversies, an atmosphere which I had hoped I’d left behind upon leaving grad school).  It is hard for me not to compare my current church to my last church, which, even with its glaring failings, was a place where I found myself to grow in Christ, and to be spurred onward in truth and love by people my age as well as older Christians in the faith.  Both communities valued critical thinking, but it plays itself out differently in each community, and perhaps the new community hasn’t brought out the best in me in that area – it has a harsher feel to it, and brings out the harsher side of me – the same side that grad school brought out, that I didn’t like.  Also, the atmosphere of the two communities is different.  There, a weekend together at the Lake
House was what we did for fun. Here, my friends get together to watch documentaries or play word games (not that they wouldn’t be open to a retreat…it just hasn’t happened yet).  That’s not bad at all (I have a ton of documentaries in my Netflix que and I love playing word games!); it’s just different, and I don’t think I’m used to it yet.  Such feelings are compounded when we visit our old church (a mere 6 hour drive from where we are now) and I feel like we’re coming home the moment I walk in the door of the church of the door of the houses of the many dear friends we still have there.  It is also compounded when, watching theOld Church from a distance, I hear about how much the church has changed (for the better) in the past year since we left.  Grace, forgiveness, and love seem to be balancing its desire for truth; the community seems to grow in love every time we return.   Not that the New Church doesn’t have any of these things.  I’ve experienced them at times on a smaller scale within our small group, certainly.  Our small group has become dear to us in the past year and we’ve been very grateful for their support and love.  It’s not a cross-generational small group and I do often miss the insight and wisdom of older Christians, but it has provided support for Brian and I through our first year of marriage and we have developed some friendships that I hope will last for a long time.  Likewise, we’ve had several opportunities through the New Church that we wouldn’t have had at the Old Church – like Brian working at a homeless shelter and both of us going on a missions trip to East Africa together.  We’ve also enjoyed the worship at New Church (more so than at Old
Church). So, neither church is “better.”  It’s just: different.  And because different isn’t necessarily bad, I think it is ok for us to join our New Church.  But that doesn’t necessarily mean that it feels like home yet.  And maybe it won’t for a long time.  But God has put us here (for reasons I sometimes have a very hard time seeing).  Brian asked me the other night if I was happy where we were, and I couldn’t honestly answer “yes.”  However, I do believe in God’s faithfulness, and if this is where God has us, then we need to be all there, and looking for the blessing, even if it is not the blessing I may have chosen for us.