The Search Is On...And Maybe Almost Over

I don't know about you guys, but looking for a new church has never been tops on my list of things to do. Probably doesn't even rank in the top ten. Necessary, yes. Hard, yes. Fun, not always. Being a family that has moved a lot, we got to do it more than we wanted, but being a military family that moved less than most, we got to do it less than we could have. And of course since we just moved to a brand new state, the search is on again.

Now I will say one thing - the internet is a beautiful thing most of the time. We used it to do initial searches on the Awana website for churches that have the program all the way up to 12th grade because our girls are working toward their Citation Awards. Now attending the church where we go to Awana is not a must, but it's a start in searching for a church. In looking around at lots of church sites on the internet, we only found one to put in our "favorites" folder to check out when we got here. That was pretty slim pickins'. The only time we have joined the first church we tried out was in Illinois, and odds are just against that happening.

Last week we went to service at this particular church and enjoyed it. We met a few people, a lady that homeschooled her two children through high school and just graduated her second one (which was of immediate interest to me with the girls starting high school this year), the person in charge of the Awana T&T program who told us a lot about their program, and others. So we went back to Sunday school this week. Now my boys are never enthusiastic about trying out new Sunday school classes, which is one of the reasons we just do service the first time to make sure the church is even one we would consider. Buddy is excruciatingly shy around people he doesn't know, and Caboose is just a pickle about it to be a pickle about it. Glory be, they both enjoyed it! They were also very happy that the children at this church, unlike in our last church, seemed to be well-behaved. It was the status quo at our last church for children to act up and be rowdy, and this completely went against anything our kids had ever been taught or had been exposed to. It was difficult for them to be around, and they never fully adjusted or fit in. Our girls enjoyed their class, we enjoyed our class, and we enjoyed the service for the second week in a row. It's a Biblically sound and conservative church, the size we are typically drawn to and comfortable with, and at first glance they seem to be highly involved in both home and foreign missions.

Our kids are already asking us if we can keep going to this church. We are praying that God will continue to show us if this is indeed the right church for our family. But how amazing that it may once again be that the first church we visited is indeed our new church home.