So this blog is really just turning into an account of my reflections on my life as I am thinking through and sorting through a lot of stuff in my life. So this section focuses on church. Please not a lot of this is just me sorting through my thoughts and putting them down on paper. Writing helps me think so I figured I might as well share my word vomits with you all. Im not really doing too much editing to my recent posts because it is really just me throwing my thoughts onto paper.
So all of this began back when my family originally moved to Delta Junction. We were in a new town and began the quest to find a new church (I say “quest” because if you have ever had to try to find a new church it can be quite the adventure.). After exploring some we finally felt that God had called us to Living Waters Assemble of God (LWAG for short). Now my family had never attended an Assemble of God church before, so it was weird that we did land there. Eventually they found out that my Dad had lead worship before, and asked him to lead worship for the church. It was a very small congregation and they had been singing hymns acappella when we had originally started going. So my Dad began to lean worship, and less than a year after we had started going the pastor abruptly left on very short notice. When this happened the congregation turned to the one other person who had regularly been on stage, my Dad. So low and behold, after attending this church for less than a year, and without even being members (long story) we suddenly found ourselves leading this church. Over the years interm pastors came and went, most never stayed more than a couple months, so through all of this my family still pretty much ran everything.
After a few years my Dad decided to begin pursuing ordination in the Assembly of God church. It was a couple years worth of classes, I took a few random ones with him. It was a lot of work but something we all truly thought was worth it. Those two years went by, a few more temporary pastors came and went, and it finally was time for my Dads final test/interview. He aced the final test, but after the interview they said that they “failed to see the calling to ministry” in my Dads life and because of that he needed to do a year long internship if he wished to continue pursuing ordination. If you knew my dad at the time, you would know that that is total crap, he disagreed on a few things doctrinally that should not have been considered as breaking points, but to them they were (My Dad still has the letter somewhere, we laugh about it now).
Over the next couple of years, a new pastor was found, however my family was not huge fans of this new pastor. It slowly became clear that he and his wife were also not necessarily fans of us as well. We ended up leaving this church that we had poured our blood sweat and tears into for so many years, essentially because of a few inconsequential doctrinal disagreements, and that we were no longer wanted there by the leadership. Looking back I know my family leaving was needed for the church to (eventually) grow (although it actually shrunk under that pastor, but I digress). I looked up LWAG on Facebook the other day and was genuinely excited to see a thriving congregation there!
After leaving LWAG we started attending another church in the community for a while, but then I went to college. Man let me tell you what, it is a lot easier to sleep in till 10am, and then wake up and watch football (I was in Oregon so football games started at 10am) than it was to try to go find a church. If I am being honest, part of it was being lazy, and part of it was not wanting to get attached to a church and then hurt again. Continuing that trend I found ways to avoid becoming attached to any church body. If I found myself at a church I would just kinda shut down and stay quiet. Being at home or summer staff at camp or at a Bible college you were expected to go to church, and I would, but mentally I was not there at all. Even after Jesus truly got ahold of my life church never really took an important role for me. I would just shove it to the side and avoid participating as much as possible.
After moving to Michigan to begin working in full time camp ministry I knew I needed to try to find somewhere to go to church, once again mostly because it was what was expected of me, and not entirely what I wanted to do. I did my best to try to find somewhere that I fit in and actually tried to participate. Being in camping it is hard to become active in a church, or even remembered by people as you are in and out of church so often because of responsibilities at camp. I attended one church off and on for a few years, but was never really known there. I would have people come up and introduce themselves to me and ask if I was new every few months (and this was a church of a little over 100 people at the time). I once again gave up on church, it was easier to stay home and get a little more rest on Sundays than put in the effort to just not be known at all.
Fast forward to a few years ago, one of our friends that had been in camping had recently taken a youth pastor position at a church about 40 minuets away. While it was a good distance from us, we decided to give it a go. We attended as much as we could over the spring and shortly before summer, where we can’t really make it to church for almost 3 months, they had a new attendees lunch. We got to meet the pastoral staff that we didn’t know yet and explain who we were and how we would be disappearing for a few months because of camp. We didn’t make it back to that church until their annual “Tailgate” service (its a big outdoor service with baptisms, a grilling competition, cornhole, and all around good time). I ended up in line for seconds next to the head pastor. When he turned and saw me I was greeted with an enthusiastic “Good to have you back! How was camp this summer?”. For him, it was just a simple pleasantry, making conversation in line for food, but to me it meant the world. Someone at church actually remembered who I was. For what seemed like the first time in years I felt like I was seen.
It has taken me a while to work through my weird past with church, but having attended a healthy church for a few years now it has helped remind me how important church really is. Not just church on Sunday morning, but church as a community of Gods people to help keep each other accountable, help grow one another, and spur them on in faith. I realized that a healthy church community is needed (and commanded, but im not gonna get into that right now) to help push you, challenge you, and help grow your faith and relationship with God. It is not the only thing that should be doing those things, but it is a key part of it, and I had not had that for a very very long time. While we still are not able to attend on a regular basis, we are known and loved by our church and have been able to start taking part in some of the ministries available to us.
I also just want to take a quick moment to thank the pastoral staff over at Brown Corners for everything. They have gone above and beyond making my family feel welcome and loved. You have no idea how much it means to us.
Anyways… don’t be like me… get out of bed and go be active in your church.
