It is interesting that, even when we think we know what we want, God knows better. Not surprising of course, just interesting, especially when it happens so blatantly in our lives.
We've been attending, involved with, and became members of a church outside of a nearby town. We have been in love with everything about it; fantastic music...great, and at times almost mesmerizing teaching...wonderful fellowship...myriad opportunities for service...community involvement... Yes, every church body has flaws, as they're all made of people, and people have flaws; if we didn't there would be no need for a Savior. And we know that. But as I was saying, this was about as close to a perfect church body for us as we were ever going to find and we had no hesitation throwing ourselves fully into activities there and supporting the pastor and membership in any way that we could.
Why we started contemplating a change of churches isn't up for discussion, is a private matter, and there's no need to comment on that here. Nothing horrible about the church. But we did decide to once again visit a few churches in our own town. We'd visited most of them 3 years ago when we moved here, and didn't find anything to our liking. We wanted open and friendly people who were sincere, not "church people". We wanted lively contemporary music. We wanted an active youth group. We wanted opportunities for service, and a place where our tithes would be used productively and carefully.
Well at that time we'd visited "our" church in the nearby town a few times, then wanted to look for something closer. We didn't find what we were looking for, though. We heard pastors droning in a monotone, almost bored, rote prayer for God to "light a fire under us". We heard blue-haired ladies churning out old hymns while the congregation yawned between verses. (Nothing wrong with old hymns...in fact, there's everything RIGHT about them! It wasn't the hymns that were causing the yawns.) We got lots of greetings from people with their church faces on who enthusiastically shook our hands, then ignored us as they huddled in their holy cliques and never acknowledged us again. We got "the look" when we happened to sit in the wrong pew, where someone had already laid a claim. And we never went back to any of them. Except the church in the next town, where we didn't experience any of the above. And it suited our needs for the next 2-1/2 years, perfectly.
So for the last few months we've been praying about our place in a church body, which church body, and where, and decided to re-visit some of the churches from 3 years ago as well as visit any we'd missed the first time around.
Yesterday we went to a small church we'd never attended. I'm going to guess maybe 20 people there. Most congregants were middle- to retirement-age. But friendly enough. All 40 eyes of course turned to us as we walked in the door of the small - ok, tiny - sanctuary, so I smiled and made a comment to all that yes, we were new, and asked about seating arrangements. We like to sit right up front, and were informed that "nobody ever sits up there!" to which I replied, "Well, we do!" in my typically friendly forthright manner.
The singing was lacking in enthusiasm, done with a tape or CD playing. Old hymns. No live instruments; the piano sat forlornly pushed up against a wall. Various congregants came to the front (a couple of dozen steps, max, from anywhere they were sitting) to read a Bible verse from a piece of paper between each hymn. Then the pastor prayed, and told God a whole bunch of stuff that God already knows; I got the impression that he had already started his sermon, cloaked in the guise of a prayer. But parts of the prayer touched my heart and I found my heart pulled to agree with him. Nobody spoke during the prayer, there were no "Yes Lord"s or "Amen"s uttered until he finished with, "And the people said..." Then there was a group "amen".
The sermon was read from a stack of half-sheets of notes. I would say that the pastor spent equal amounts of time looking down at his notes, and looking up at the people to whom he was speaking. It wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, fiery :). But it was unique. He based his sermon on a well-known story out of Luke; we've all heard sermons on the same theme before. But this was different. He brought out points that we'd never considered or thought about. He put a perfectly different twist on it, and talked about the more subtle parts of the Scripture portion, parts that have always passed unconsidered in previous readings or sermons we'd heard. I was, in spite of the unpretentious presentation, totally drawn in...
Then he stopped talking. And it was over. People just got up from their seats and started mingling. No final hymn or other indication that the 35-minute service had ended. He just stopped talking and that was it.
We were invited to share in some coffee or tea or hot chocolate and cookies. Pete chatted with a few of the men who introduced themselves and shook his hand. I managed to engage one of the women in conversation as I poured a cup of coffee. Quite a few of the women spoke to my daughter, admiring her 3-1/2 week old baby. The pastor came over and spoke with us a bit as well, and said he was really glad we'd come. We learned that "just about everybody" there was related. Rather than wait to be approached, I approached a few of the ladies and asked their names.
After about 10 minutes, the ladies sat down at one table to have their after-meetin' fellowship, and the men to another. We didn't force ourselves into their groups but I wouldn't have hesitated to sit down with them, and I think we would have been welcomed, if not enthusiastically, if we had. But we had other things to do, so we left. As we were going, we saw the pastor also leave. I learned later, by doing a little googling, that he is also the pastor of another church in another town in our county.
It was maybe what we expected. It was any the things we were looking for. And, after we got into the car, Pete and I both felt strangely drawn to this little congregation that uses canned music and copious notes. It isn't what we've said wanted. But God knows better. We'll go back.
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