We are not church hoppers. By that, I mean, my family and I have been attending some type of church for over 23 years. During that time we have been at the same church for over 12 years, before that 10 years. I was on staff for 11 of them. Then after some heart wrenching church politics, we resigned as pastors and started attending my good friend Ryan’s church in South Aberdeen. We stayed there for a year. Then the Lord spoke to us to start looking up toward Olympia, as we will most likely be moving up that way in the future.
I have attended small churches, home Bible studies, semi large churches. All of them have the worship of Jesus in common, but many of them come at this in completely different ways. Unfortunatley, most of them we have been involved with treat the running of the church like a corporation, not a family. Bylaws, board meetings and agendas seem to have tainted my church life. Seems like many people would like to have superstars in the pulpit, financial gurus in the office and entertaining Sunday mornings. God’s community isn’t supposed to be that way. It’s called a body for a reason. It’s supposed to be a group of people, each doing their part, for the great good of Jesus, and those around them. A team. What a concept. We are supposed to work TOGETHER for the Kingdom of God. Love should win out, and scripture should be followed, taught and lived.
No church is perfect. Even if there was a perfect church, as soon as I waked in it would cease to be that way. 🙂 In other words, I’m not looking for perfection. I’m looking for a community of people that love God, are not mean to people they don’t understand or relate to, live genuinley and are kind hard working people. They know how to pray and really love the people around them. I thought I had found that at one time, but was sadly mistaken.
We have tried out the Westwood Baptist Church in Olympia for the last two Sundays. So far I like what I see, but I have many more places to attend before I hang my hat and say I found a place to worship with my family.
Things I liked about Westwood Baptist:
Great worship with songs I knew.
Solid Bible Teaching with a kind pastor.
Cool audio visual stuff (Of course I like that)
Things I didn’t like:
Only the greeters assigned for the day have talked with us.
It’s a big church, could get lost in the crowd.
I’m trying to have a list of things that I want in a church. Then I realized that a list isn’t the answer. God’s will is. In other words: I need to be at the place God wants us. Since I won’t find a perfect church, I could look for God’s perfect will for my family. 🙂 That is attainable if I keep my heart open to Jesus and my ears open to the Holy Spirit.
Let the adventure continue!
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