Church Thoughts

We're still here in Ohio, although we are heading home Tuesday. We had a fun time Thursday over at Amy's house (and no one got sick!), and then Friday we spent the day with Beverly and her family. She has 5 kids, and all 12 kids got along very well and played very nicely together so that Beverly and I could spend a long time talking and catching up! It has been 5 years since we've actually seen each other, but it didn't seem anywhere near that long with blogging and Facebook. We have a lot in common, so it was fun to talk about homeschooling, having more kids (or not), and other things.

Today the kids and I visited a different church. Often we go to the base chapel, which is where my parents go and where Bob and I got married 16 1/2 years ago. A lot of retirees are still there that we knew back then, so it is always fun to go back there and see everyone. When we were stationed here last time, however, we actually attended an off-base church. That church now has a new pastor, who is a bit of a cheerleader, rather than someone who really digs into the Word each week, which is one reason we wouldn't attend there again if we ever moved back.

But another reason is that they have sort of gone a different direction than we are, in terms of youth stuff. This is an area that we hadn't considered until the past few years when the boys started getting older. We started getting a lot less comfortable with the way that a lot of churches send the youth off doing tons of super fun and exciting things during services . . . until all of a sudden, the kids get too old and have to start sitting through church. Then they find it dull, and the church often responds by jazzing up the background behind the pastor, adding tons of video clips and drama segments, taking away any significant time really spent in corporate prayer (because that is really boring, and surely you can just sing more worship songs for the same effect . . .) And still, studies show that a lot of kids who grow up going faithfully to church very frequently turn away from church altogether when they reach college.

As it turns out, the Christian walk is not all excitement and goofy songs and games. It actually involves discipline, and I don't think the churches are often doing a good enough job of balancing that. I especially think that kids need to see their parents worshipping, and be a part of that as well. The church we go to in VA does have children's church until 3rd grade, so I'm not saying I'm totally against ever having your children be separate. But I do think it is very important for kids to start worshipping and learning how to sit still and reverently listen before they get into high school! And if the pastor is really good, then they might even choose to sit in the service before 3rd grade! Caleb and Jonathan both choose to sit with us in service, and Jonathan has even told us recently that he feels like God wants him to be a pastor, like Pastor Mike. We discuss the sermon together, and the kids often sing the songs we sing at church around the house.

Well, all that to say that it bothers me that, should we move back here, I don't know what church we would attend, so when we are back visiting, I like to try different churches. This time I googled "reformed baptist" in this area, and I found 3 churches, one of which we tried today. I must say we really enjoyed it! As we were driving there, Luke talked about how nervous he was, and how he didn't like visiting new churches. Me either! But as we drove away from there, he said, "Those people were all so nice!" And they really were. Everyone we saw engaged us in conversation, even more than just the surface chit-chat of "Are you a visitor? New to the area?" The families who sat in front of us and behind us both talked to us for quite a while. The family in front of us had 10 kids, so we didn't feel out of place, LOL.

This church only has nursery up to 2 years of age, and after that, everyone is in the service. There were quite a lot of kids, and when someone was loud, the parents just took them out, dealt with them, and came back in. So nice to see! There was also a nice mix of ages represented in the congregation. It definitely didn't have a showy worship leader or anything, and I am just fine with that. We even sang songs out of the hymnal! That is what I really miss, now that our church back home meets for morning service at a middle school. All the songs are on a screen. I used to love flipping through hymnals when I was little, and I think it helps keep kids engaged in the song when they can follow right along with the words right directly in front of them. So I liked that a lot. I liked the pastor as well. His sermon was on part of Luke 5, but I couldn't tell if he was preaching expositorily through Luke or not. I definitely prefer that style of preaching, verse-by-verse exposition.

So to sum it all up, I would definitely go back there! The people were just so nice, and the preaching was good as well. And they seemed to line up with what I am looking for as far as kids. No youth group mentioned!