everything that's on my mind
(as if there's not already enough people doing this)Monday, October 31, 2005
The church search
It seems that the search for a new church home after returning back to Little Rock is more difficult than I anticipated. Our previous searches for a new church home have been resolved pretty quickly. Either we were looking only at one specific church in determining whether to leave our current church home, or, as in the case when we moved to Alabama, we visited multiple churches but one stood out pretty quickly as the one for us. This time around, it's proving to be much different.
We originally had four on our list of churches to visit. We eliminated one before ever visiting, simply due to location. We have been traveling 15-20 miles to church for all 10 years of our marriage. We decided that we wanted to try to find one closer to home this time, and there were so many choices near us in west Little Rock, we felt that we could do this. Whether or not this is wise to eliminate a place for this reason or not, I'm not completely certain. But it is the decision we made, and so we continue to search in the area of town where we live.
Until yesterday, we'd visited two of the remaining three, and I think we've eliminated one of those. The third we finally visited yesterday. We plan to visit for several weeks, probably until the end of November. Shortly after our visit yesterday, we managed to see some old friends in a restaurant who attend yet another church that we'd not yet considered. Based on what they told us, we have now added it to our list and intend to at least investigate it as well, and perhaps visit there in December.
There are pros and cons, if you will, to all of these church families. We have connections with at least a few people in all of them as well. There are things we like and dislike about each (so far), in reference to what we are looking for in a church home. And, of course, there are so many things to weigh as try to discern where God wants to use us and which group will be the best fit for us. One other factor in all of this is that, with our background being Churches of Christ, it's strange to be looking primarily at churches which are not of that heritage. Only one of the four we are looking at comes from that background. It's one of those situations where it may be that the place for us ends up being outside of what we've grown up with. While I believe that we are ready for that, there is an element of sadness in considering such. While new experiences and relationships lie ahead, part of us, I believe, would still miss certain things from what we've always known.
Ideally, we would be able to drive by church's gathering place and God would have a sign out front that said "This is it!" But that doesn't happen, as far as I can tell. We are three months into our search now, and are probably no more than halfway through. We were optimistically hoping to get settled in a particular group by year end, but that's unlikely at this point. So we continue in our search and look forward to eventually having a permanent church home and family again, trusting that we will be pointed to the right place.
Kyle Lake
A horrible tragedy occurred yesterday in Waco. Pastor Kyle Lake of University Baptist Church in Waco was electrocuted during a baptism service and died a short time later. I just recently placed Kyle's new book on prayer in my "to read" list. This is likely devastating to his church family, and I suspect devastating doesn't begin to describe the effect on his wife and 3 young children (a 5-year-old daughter and twin 3-year-old sons). Please pray for this church, and for Kyle's family.
Chris Tomlin tour blog
I mentioned the Chris Tomlin concert last week. Here's their tour blog and the post Jesse added regarding the concert here in Little Rock.
Peyton still can't get it done
I guess now I'm writing something about college football every week, so here's my "college football note of the week." Saturday evening in Knoxville, at their game against South Carolina, Tennessee retired the jersey of Peyton Manning. Now, here's the funny part (at least to me) - Peyton Manning played four years for Tennessee, and was 0-4 against Florida and their coach, Steve Spurrier. Peyton shows back up Saturday night for a Tennessee game against Spurrier's South Carolina team, and what happens?
South Carolina 16, Tennessee 15.
It appears they still can't beat Spurrier with Peyton in Knoxville. Maybe they should've waited until the Vanderbilt game to bring him back...
We originally had four on our list of churches to visit. We eliminated one before ever visiting, simply due to location. We have been traveling 15-20 miles to church for all 10 years of our marriage. We decided that we wanted to try to find one closer to home this time, and there were so many choices near us in west Little Rock, we felt that we could do this. Whether or not this is wise to eliminate a place for this reason or not, I'm not completely certain. But it is the decision we made, and so we continue to search in the area of town where we live.
Until yesterday, we'd visited two of the remaining three, and I think we've eliminated one of those. The third we finally visited yesterday. We plan to visit for several weeks, probably until the end of November. Shortly after our visit yesterday, we managed to see some old friends in a restaurant who attend yet another church that we'd not yet considered. Based on what they told us, we have now added it to our list and intend to at least investigate it as well, and perhaps visit there in December.
There are pros and cons, if you will, to all of these church families. We have connections with at least a few people in all of them as well. There are things we like and dislike about each (so far), in reference to what we are looking for in a church home. And, of course, there are so many things to weigh as try to discern where God wants to use us and which group will be the best fit for us. One other factor in all of this is that, with our background being Churches of Christ, it's strange to be looking primarily at churches which are not of that heritage. Only one of the four we are looking at comes from that background. It's one of those situations where it may be that the place for us ends up being outside of what we've grown up with. While I believe that we are ready for that, there is an element of sadness in considering such. While new experiences and relationships lie ahead, part of us, I believe, would still miss certain things from what we've always known.
Ideally, we would be able to drive by church's gathering place and God would have a sign out front that said "This is it!" But that doesn't happen, as far as I can tell. We are three months into our search now, and are probably no more than halfway through. We were optimistically hoping to get settled in a particular group by year end, but that's unlikely at this point. So we continue in our search and look forward to eventually having a permanent church home and family again, trusting that we will be pointed to the right place.
Kyle Lake
A horrible tragedy occurred yesterday in Waco. Pastor Kyle Lake of University Baptist Church in Waco was electrocuted during a baptism service and died a short time later. I just recently placed Kyle's new book on prayer in my "to read" list. This is likely devastating to his church family, and I suspect devastating doesn't begin to describe the effect on his wife and 3 young children (a 5-year-old daughter and twin 3-year-old sons). Please pray for this church, and for Kyle's family.
Chris Tomlin tour blog
I mentioned the Chris Tomlin concert last week. Here's their tour blog and the post Jesse added regarding the concert here in Little Rock.
Peyton still can't get it done
I guess now I'm writing something about college football every week, so here's my "college football note of the week." Saturday evening in Knoxville, at their game against South Carolina, Tennessee retired the jersey of Peyton Manning. Now, here's the funny part (at least to me) - Peyton Manning played four years for Tennessee, and was 0-4 against Florida and their coach, Steve Spurrier. Peyton shows back up Saturday night for a Tennessee game against Spurrier's South Carolina team, and what happens?
South Carolina 16, Tennessee 15.
It appears they still can't beat Spurrier with Peyton in Knoxville. Maybe they should've waited until the Vanderbilt game to bring him back...
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