Do You Want to Be Well? “Jesus specialized in asking simple, straightforward questions. They weren’t designed to trick people and went straight to the heart of the matter. They invited people to pause and look deep inside at their aching spiritual poverty. John 5:6 says, ‘would you like to get well?’ or ‘wilt thou be made whole?’ Well, of course we want to be well. Why would He even ask?” Plus, Linda links to this printable of verses that share Who Am I in Christ?
How Can We Avoid Putting a Band-Aid on Others’ Grief and Pain? “A reader recently asked me a searching question about this scene from Mark’s Gospel: ‘Mark describes Jesus as greatly distressed and troubled, sorrowful to death. If Jesus felt this way, why do we, as Christians, often just try to put a band-aid on others’ grief and pain?'”
Learning a Lesson from Scandals Close to Home. “Though we would never wish for a scandal to take place and make its way into the headlines, and while we should always regret the circumstances that bring one about, a scandal does offer the opportunity for personal introspection. A wise man will heed its lessons, for it inevitably provides the context to consider whether sin is sneaking up on us as it has on someone else, to practice the biblical admonition ‘let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall’ (1 Corinthians 10:12).”
More Than Music: How the Congregation Plays a Part in Every Element of Worship, HT to Challies. “We equate worship with music because we have been trained to think that singing is the only way in which congregations actually participate in worship. But Scripture is clear: corporate worship encompasses much more than music. In fact, every element of Christian worship involves the active participation of the entire congregation.”
Weaknesses: Our Unlikely Ally, HT to Challies. “If you want to turn the world’s wisdom on its head completely, this is it. The Apostle Paul says he will boast about his weaknesses (2 Cor. 12:9). We do not boast of weaknesses; we hide them because they hold us back from being who we should be. They threaten our competence. They are faults and defects. Instead, we boast of accomplishments, skills, talents, and abilities, but biblical wisdom says this is backward.”
I couldn’t help but use the spring icon this week, though spring is officially a few weeks away. It looks like we’ll still have some cold nights over the next week, but pleasant days.
It’s been a quiet, fairly low-key week. Today it’s time to pause with Susanne and friends atLiving to Tell the Story to look back at the highlights of the week.
1. Time with Timothy. My son and daughter-in-law asked me to watch Timothy for a few hours one afternoon.
2. A light cooking week. If you’ve been reading here long, you know that’s a favorite for me. 🙂 Jason and Mittu brought dinner in a crock pot when they brought Timothy and ate with us after they got back. Then we got take-out a couple of nights. Jim was away last night, so I just had frozen pizza.
3. Lunch with Melanie. We talked about the world’s problems and didn’t come up with any solutions except that people need Jesus and we look forward to His coming.
4. A Crumbl cookie. I tried the Maple Bacon one this time. Soooo good. But so sweet and rich I couldn’t eat much at one time. I don’t think I’ll get any of their frosted cookies any more—normally with cakes I scrape off the excess frosting. For just a cookie, it seems silly to pay premium price for a special treat just to scrape off 1/3 of it.
5. Blooms and new growth. I mentioned daffodils last week. Flowering tress are blooming all over town. I just noticed yesterday my roses are leafing out. After the barren landscape of winter, I always look forward to the new growth and color as spring approaches.
Lauraine Snelling wrote a series of five novellas about Norwegian immigrants to North Dakota in the 1900s. The first three, Dakota Dawn, Dakota Dream, and Dakota Dusk, were packaged together in a free-with-my-subscription audiobook. I don’t know what’s up with the picture on the cover—no one dressed that way in the 1900s!
In Dakota Dawn, Norah Johanson’s fiance had gone to America three years ago, promising to send for her. Now she’s on her way. But when she arrives, she finds that Hans has just recently died. Reverend and Mrs. Moen take her in for as long as she needs to decide what to do. She doesn’t have the money to go back home, so she must find work.
Carl Detchman is a quiet but stubborn German immigrant whose wife has just died in childbirth. The Moens have taken care of his young daughter and infant son, but he can’t expect them to do so forever. The Moen’s house guest who has been helping with the children seems capable. But he can’t invite a beauitful young single woman to his home without tongues wagging. So he proposes a marriage of convenience. If she’ll come and keep house and take care of the children until he can make other arrangements, then they can annul the marriage and he’ll pay for her ticket back home.
Norah is shocked at first, but agrees. And, of course, the two fall in love. This is a frequently seen story line with an inevitable conclusion, but it was enjoyable to see the two work through their issues and come first to appreciate, and then to love each other.
In Dakota Dream, Clara Johanson, Norah’s sister, received a ticket to her sister’s town and a picture from a handsome stranger offering to pay her way to Dakota if she’ll be his wife. Clara agrees. But when she arrives at her sister’s house, no one knows who this man is.
What she doesn’t know is that Jude Weinlander brought Clara over to play a trick on his brother, Dag. He signed Dag’s name to the letter but sent his own picture. Dag is tasked with meeting Clara at the train station and taking her to the Detchman’s. He does not make a good first impression, with matted hair and beard and filth from the livery where he works.
Clara stays with her sister until the pastor asks if she can come and stay with an elderly woman who is not doing well and needs full time care. Clara has no idea the change this will make in her life—and in her relationship with Dag.
In Dakota Dusk, Jude Weinlander is disgusted. His trick on Dag backfired. He’s run out of money due to drinking and gambling and has to move with his wife back to his mother’s house.
When a fire destroys his home, after he heals, he becomes a drifter, traveling from place to place looking for work. He doesn’t drink or gamble any more, but he can’t go home. He comes upon a town rebuilding their school after a prairie fire. He stays to help, and then is asked to stay on to help rebuild other homes.
He can’t help but notice the pretty school teacher, Rebekka Stenesrude. But he can never pursue a relationship. He’s not worthy. No one could love him if they learned what he had done.
These stories were set some years after Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, so there are many similar incidents—grasshopper infestations, prairies fires, etc .But these stories are told primarily from the viewpoint of immigrants adjusting to a new land. I felt the same way I did after reading Laura’s books—glad I was born in my time and not hers!
There were so many hardships in those times. The services for help that we take for granted didn’t exist then, so people had to help each other, and accept help, or die.
But great faith and character emerged as well. I enjoyed these stories as well as the characters and the obstacles they overcame.
In The Space Between Wordsby Michele Phoenix, Jessica and two friends in Denver take a vacation to Paris. Though they’ll do some sight-seeing, they are mainly there to scout out treasures at antique stores and flea markets.
But then Jessica is shot during the Paris attacks in 2015. She’s traumatized by all she saw in the attacks. When she heals enough to be moved, she wants to get out of Paris as quickly as possible.
But one of her friends talks her into staying, at least for a little while. In one flea market, Jessica find an antique sewing box that seems to draw her. Back at her room, she discovers a secret compartment in the box which contains several sheets of handwritten paper and a few pages from an antique French Bible.
A new friend helps Jessica translate the ancient French. The sheets held the writing of a young woman named Adeline Baillard in 1695. She and her family were Huguenots when the Catholic King outlawed their faith and sanctioned torture and persecution against them. Adeline’s family gets her sister and brother and his family out, but Adeline stays with her parents. She’s a teacher and wants to help her students as much as she can while there is time.
As Jessica reads Adeline’s words, she feels compelled to find what happened to her and her family, especially her sister. Her own healing and mental and spiritual health are wrapped up in Adeline’s fate. She can’t understand how Adeline could believe so strongly in a God who would allow such atrocities to happen.
I’m sorry to say that I had completely forgotten about the Paris attacks of 2015. The year isn’t given in the novel, but the details seemed more reality than fiction, so I looked up and read more about them in Wikipedia.
This is the first book of Michele’s I have read, and I was captivated. So much of the story is touching, but subtle humor is sprinkled throughout as well. One surprise twist was heart-wrenching.
Just a few quotes that stood out to me:
I knew he worried, as I did, that that part of my life had been amputated by fear.
Father held what remained of our Bible in both hands and declared, “This is the Truth that binds us to each other and to God. These are the words exhorting us to faithfulness and strength. These are the pages that emancipated our faith from the dictates of a King. We will carry them with us as a testament to our resistance, as a reminder of all the Huguenot community has endured” (p. 115).
My grandmother believed in the power of words, in the capacity of story to transcend both time and place. This scroll is evidence of the temerity of her escape, a tribute to the ancestors who lost their world to save their faith (p. 288).
There were a couple of odd places where a child seemed to see someone who wasn’t there. But other than that, I loved everything about this book.
February has been an up and down month in many ways besides temperatures.
Early in the month we got word that Jim’s sister was not doing well. Then she passed away just a few days before her 67th birthday. She didn’t want any kind of service, so we didn’t travel up to OR. We kind of missed that closure and opportunity to see family, but we were able to touch base with some online. Jim and his oldest brother are the only ones left of his immediate family.
We had a nice Valentine’s Day with all the family. For the first time in I-don’t-know-when, Jim and I went for a pre-Valentine date. I enjoyed that quite a bit. Maybe we’ll start a new tradition!
The very next week was our dear daughter-in-law’s birthday. And, as I mentioned in the last Friday’s Fave Five, the kids saw that this week was the tenth anniversary of my husband’s surgery to remove a cancerous kidney. So they surprised him with “Kidney day,” including dinner and a kidney-shaped cake.
In-between those events, we had an excursion with Timothy and Jason to the American Museum of Science and Energy in Oak Ridge, TN. It focused much on OR’s part in the development of the nuclear bomb and the more productive ways they’ve used the science and equipment since then.
We’re still visiting churches and racking up some . . . interesting experiences. I don’t know if I will post about them. I am still processing them. As we pray for God’s leading and keep finding places with issues too big for us to want to join, I am asking God what He wants me to learn from this.
Creating
February and December are my biggest card-making months, since I make a card for all the immediate family for Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
This one was for Jim.
The words in the middle were from a sticker collection he had given me.
This was Jeremy’s.
He likes foxes. This fox is a multi-layered sticker. The mushrooms, leaves, and words were stickers as well. I love that this paper isn’t the traditional pink or red hearts (though I love traditional Valentine’s colors, too!)
This is Jason’s.
I wanted to use the candy hearts idea, and these were the only designs I found on the Cricut that would be appropriate for a mother to a son. 🙂
This was Mittu’s.
This was done on the Cricut (except the words). There’s a reason I chose this design . . . if it comes to fruition, I’ll let you in on it. 🙂 Also, I just noticed that a swirl in the bottom and top paper met on the left. I wasn’t trying to do that, so that was a nice surprise. 🙂
This was Timothy’s.
These hearts are from Minecraft, a game he likes to play. This was all done with the Cricut.
And this was Jesse’s.
I adapted it from an idea I saw on Pinterest. The hearts were made with a heart punch.
Then this one was for Mittu’s birthday.
She likes purple and sunflowers, which I’ve used a lot in the past. But she also likes daisies, and I had these adorable multi-level daisy stickers.
Watching and Listening
I didn’t listen to any podcasts this month, but I read the transcripts of a couple from Author Media.
We did see some interesting movies. One was a Polish film called Run, Boy, Run based on a true story. A young Jewish boy ends up alone in Poland, trying to hide his identity and look for work from farm to farm. It’s amazing the cruelty of some people, but the great risk others are willing to undergo to help.I enjoyed the bit at the end with the man whose childhood was depicted here.
I was looking forward to The Most Reluctant Convert about C. S. Lewis’ conversion. It was interesting to hear his story as he might tell it. I knew much of it from reading various biographies, but there were a few details I didn’t know. There were a few acted-put parts (with Nicholas Ralph from All Creatures Great and Small playing Lewis as a young man). But I think it might have been better with a few more acted parts and less narrator-talking-while-walking sections. Still, I enjoyed it overall.
Fanny’s Journey was another WWII film based on a true story about a child. In this case, a girl and her sisters are sent to a group home in the French countryside, but have to flee with their guardians. They miss a contact and end up roaming around by themselves.
With as star-studded a cast as the 2017 Murder on the Orient Express had, I am surprised I hadn’t heard about it, at least not that I remembered. I had never read the book or seen another version, so the conclusion was a surprise to me. There’s a bit of language and innuendo that I have to think was probably not in Agatha Christie’s original version.
Be Rich (Ephesians): Gaining the Things That Money Can’t Buyby Warren W. Wiersbe. This was a reread. I linked to my review of it from a few years ago. This time I slowed down and only read about half a chapter of Ephesians a day to go along with Wierbe’s chapters. Ephesians is so packed, it helped to take it in smaller chunks.
Unveiling the Past, by Kim Vogel Sawye, audiobook. A cold case detective’s current case about a missing father unearths feelings about her own absentee dad. Excellent.
Dakota Dawn, Dakota Dream, and Dakota Dusk by Lauraine Snelling, a novella series about Norwegian immigrants who settle in North Dakota in the early 1900s. They are packaged together in one audiobook. Just finished, not reviewed yet. Very good.
The Fence My Father Built by Linda S. Clare, audiobook, not reviewed or recommended.
I’m currently reading:
Be Patient (Job): Waiting on God In Difficult Times by Warren W. Wiersbe
Murder Your Darlings: And Other Gentle Writing Advice from Aristotle to Zinsser by Roy Peter Clark
Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear by Jinger Duggar Vuolo
All That’s Good: Recovering the Lost Art of Discernment by Hannah Anderson
Love Does Not Eliminate Hard Things. I noticed for the first time that Jesus waited to come when Lazarus was sick because He loved Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. Sometimes in love He allows hard things.
I recently saw a meme which said that our relationship with God is not about Him pointing out our sin, but about exchanging our hearts with Jesus.
I had to think about that a while.
I’m not sure what the writer meant by exchanging hearts with Jesus. Maybe she was alluding to Ezekiel 36:26, where God says He will remove our heart of stone and give us a heart of flesh.
But what particularly struck me was the downplaying, even the rejection, of the need for God to point out our sin. The thought reminded me of a song that was popular when I was a kid. The singer prays at night during a lonely time. She doesn’t want God to correct, challenge, or chasten her. She just wants Him to listen.
Our relationship with God is more than dealing with sin, of course. But dealing with sin is certainly part of it. Even the allusion to needing a new heart is an indication that all is not right with ours.
No one enjoys having their wrongdoings pointed out. Yet God pointing out our sin is not a negative aspect of our relationship with Him. It’s a blessing. It’s sin that comes between us, hinders our prayers, and clouds our fellowship. When God convicts us of sin, it’s a sign of His love and an opportunity to confess to Him and be forgiven. Proverbs 28:13 says, “Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.”
We might think of it a little like this. Suppose a young boy who is old enough to know better kicks a ball around in the house and breaks a window, hits his little sister, skips school, and is found smoking with his friends—and then asks his parents for the latest video game. Most parents would say, “We have some other things to talk about first.”
The parents correct the child not just because he’s not living up to their standards or embarrassing them in front of the neighbors, but for his own good. A child who is never corrected by his parents will never learn to say no to himself or rein himself in. He’ll most likely have trouble in school, in his job, and in relationships because he’s never been taught to do anything but have his own way.
We don’t like to be shown that we’re doing something wrong. Everyone having their own “truth” these days makes it even harder to pin down an authoritative right and wrong.
But what about when we are wrong?
If you’re going the wrong direction, wouldn’t you want someone to tell you before you go too far out of your way?
If you are training to be an accountant, wouldn’t you want to work out the mistakes in your calculations so you don’t cost yourself or your client great sums of money?
If you’re a brain surgeon, wouldn’t you want the best training and practice so you’re not a hazard to your patients?
Correction is a fact of everyday life. We’re in a constant state of growth. Learning better ways to do things and treat people involves examining our thoughts, motives, speech, and actions, ferreting out what’s bad, and learning improved ways to think, feel, speak, and act.
The need for correction is even more vital spiritually.
Sin is what originally separates us from God. Isaiah 59:2: “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear.”
Jesus died on the cross to take care of our sin. 1 John 3:5: “You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” Galatians 2:21b: “If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”
Well, you might say, I am a believer. The Bible says “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1). So I don’t have to worry about sin any more.
No, that’s not true. I John 1:6-10 says—to Christians—
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
Our sins are forgiven and we’re not under condemnation. But we still have an old nature. After we’re saved, we fight against sin because we have a new nature that wants to please our Father. As we grow in Him, He convicts us of things that are wrong so we might confess them and put them aside. Sin doesn’t sever our relationship, but it does affect it.
Usually after several years of being a Christian, we’ll be convicted about things we never thought of when we were first saved. That’s a blessing: if God dealt with everything in our lives at once, we’d be overwhelmed. As parents, the things we deal with our children at age fifteen will be different, and likely more advanced, than what we dealt with at age five.
Being convicted of our sin does more than prompt us to confess and forsake the sin. It also humbles us and reminds us how much we need to be in God’s Word and to rely on Him for our daily walk.
A. W. Tozer said, “We must allow the Word of God to correct us the same way we allow it to encourage us.” “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work’ (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Multitudes of verses in proverbs tell us that wise people receive corrections, but fools don’t listen.
Like the psalmist, we need to regularly invite God to “Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24). “Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; Try my mind and my heart” (Psalm 26:2). Paul tells us to examine ourselves before taking communion.
God “disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it” (Hebrews 12:10b-11).
We don’t approach a stern judge who is ready to bang his gavel. We come to one who sympathizes with us in grace. “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:14-16).
So don’t search the Bible or pray only for assurance and affirmation. Let God’s Word and Spirit do their sanctifying work of searching you and correcting you. The process may not be pleasant, but His cleansing ultimately brings great peace and joy.
Here are a handful of thought-provoking reads found this week:
A Life-Giving Brain Cancer, HT to Challies. “In July of 2022, I was diagnosed with a tumour in the left frontal lobe of my brain; what doctors termed the eloquent, dominant brain. … Six months later, I am glad to have completed active treatment, and excited for a second future. In fact, I’ve never been happier or felt more blessed than I do right now, and I’m eager to share with you why.”
Is It God’s Will to Always Heal Us? “Instead of assuming God wants us healthy, we need to realize that He may accomplish higher purposes through our sickness rather than our health.”
Not at Odds: Revival and Routine Faithfulness. “A true revival therefore will never diminish the necessity of routine faithfulness. Sadly, many Christians unintentionally pit revival fruitfulness against ordinary faithfulness. We celebrate one and downplay the other. Revival and routine, however, are not mutually exclusive. We should pursue and value both.”
Revival and Bad Theology, HT to Challies. “I would expect revival to be a bit of a mess because it will be a place under tremendous spiritual warfare. If God is moving, so is the enemy, but this is not my point. My point is that I would never expect a place where revival or reformation is breaking out to have all their theology perfect. Theological maturity comes in time through the study of the Scripture.”
Rethinking the Value of Potential. “I’ve noticed that a common pro-life talking point needs reforming. Often we’ll hear Christians say things like, ‘We probably aborted the person who would have found the cure for cancer’ or ‘You don’t know–you could be aborting the next great world leader’ or ‘the next great artist/musician/preacher.’ You get the point. Theologically, there are a couple of issues with this type of talk, but I’m going to focus in on what these statements say about the value of life.”
The Lost Art of Handing Out Gospel Tracts, HT to Challies. “I still get scared. It’s still awkward almost every time. And yet, I continue to feel compelled, even privileged, to do this uncomfortable, scary work of handing out tracts. If you’ve been terrified to share the gospel or have hesitated to use tracts to do so, here are a few reasons that may cause you to reconsider.”
We’ve had quite a warm week in the high 70s. I even had to turn on the air conditioner yesterday. We’re supposed to get down in the 30s again next week, but I’ll enjoy a respite from winter cold while I have it.
In the ups and downs of life, it’s helpful to stop and think about the good things God has graced us with each week. Otherwise, our blessings can fly by hardly noticed.
I like to pause each Friday with Susanne and friends atLiving to Tell the Story to do just that: acknowledge and thank God for the highlights of the week.
1. My daughter-in-law’s birthday. We enjoyed celebrating her arrival in the world and in our family.
Jason made that gorgeous chocolate cheesecake for Mittu’s birthday!
2. Kidney Day. Jason and Mittu realized this week was the tenth anniversary of my husband’s surgery for kidney cancer (made easy to remember since his surgery was on Mittu’s birthday that year). They decided to surprise him with a “Kidney Day” celebration. Mittu made this adorable kidney-shaped cake as well as chicken tostadas. Jim showed his urologist a picture of the cake, and he got a kick out of it.
3. An all-clear confirmation. Jim had his annual visit with his urologist this week, and his scans and tests confirmed that he is still cancer-free. The type of kidney cancer he had doesn’t usually spread, but it can: thus the need for yearly checks. It’s always a relief to get the results of that visit. The doctor said they don’t usually follow up on it any more after 10 years, since it’s even less likely to spread after that time.
4. Breakfast biscuits. Jim had to go out early one morning for lab work while fasting and brought us some Chick-Fil-A biscuits when he came back.
5. Daffodils have started springing up!
Is there some blessing, large or small, you can give thanks for this week?
A couple of long-time blog friends have been unable to comment on my blog, even though we’ve commented on each other’s sites for years. That made me wonder if others are having trouble commenting as well.
I do hear from some of you regularly. (Thank you!) So some comments are getting through. But there should not be any problem commenting at all.
If you can’t leave a comment here, would you email me and let me know? And it would be a big help if you could tell me exactly what kind of error message comes up when you try to comment. Any details you can give me will help when I take this to WordPress support.
There is a link in my sidebar under my picture that says “Feel free to email me.” Click on that phrase, and you should be taken to your email server. If that doesn’t work, I’ll expand my email here so bots don’t pick it up. Just take out the words in parentheses and write it like a normal email address: barbarah06 (at) gmail (dot) com.
I’ve had difficulty myself commenting on some WordPress blogs that make me log in every time I comment now. I get a message saying I need to log in because I am using an new email address, even though I have commented on these sites for years with the same email address and web site. So maybe WordPress has some kind of glitch.
But I’d like to let WordPress know exactly what’s going on with commenting problems here so they can look into it.
I wrote a couple of weeks ago about ways churches could help visitors to find out more about their church. I thought it only fair to look at the other side of the coin: how can new visitors to a church help their visit to go well?
We have many options to watch churches online. But we miss so much if we just observe from afar rather than taking the time to participate with others of like faith. Yes, all Christians belong to the church as a whole. But it’s in our individual congregations where we serve, learn, grow, build each other up, practice the “one anothers” in the Bible.
It’s disconcerting to look for a new church home. On one hand, we don’t want to flounder around for long. On the other, we want to take time to make the best decision. Meanwhile, we feel adrift until we find the place where we feel we belong and can serve.
These are some factors that have helped us when visiting churches.
1. Pray for God’s wisdom and direction, not just before your search, but all during it.
2. Decide what’s most important to you. Obviously, you want to find a church that preaches truth from the Bible. But as I mentioned in the previous post, it’s possible in cities like ours to find hundreds of churches with the same statement of faith, the same core beliefs that we ascribe to. So sometimes we end up weighing secondary issues, like:
Traditional vs. contemporary style of service and music “King James Only” or other Bible versions Casual or formal Expositional or topical preaching Continuationist or cessationist (referring to certain gifts of the Holy Spirit) Reformed or not Age-segregated or family-integrated Songleader and choir or worship team Premillennial, post-millennial, amillennial (referring to “end times”)
We can acknowledge that no one’s salvation is dependent on their views of these secondary issues, and Christians have freedom of conscience in some of these areas to choose what they think best. But if you feel strongly one way, you’re going to be uncomfortable in a church that practices another way.
And then there are issues like programs for the various family members, preferences for a large or small church, etc. But I would encourage folks not to be too rigid about programs and church size. We were hesitant about our last church because it had fewer than 25 people, and we didn’t want to be in a church that small. But we loved the church and the people, and it had a real family feeling to it. There are advantages to large and small churches–neither is right or wrong. If you’ve been used to one, maybe give the other a try. And personally, I am less interested in programs than I used to be.
3. Research. Asking people you know for church recommendations is often a good place to start. But it’s vital to research churches on your own as well.
Thankfully, these days most churches have at least basic websites where you can find a statement of faith. Most church sites will tell you a little more about themselves (though, after you’ve looked at several, they all begin to sound alike. One of my pleas in the previous post was for church websites to tell what’s distinctive about the church as much as possible). Many church web sites will have audio or video recording from previous services, which helps you know what the worship and preaching styles of the church are. We also like to look at information about the pastoral staff. Where a pastor has gone to school or what organizations he has served with will shed light on where he is coming from.
Many churches have a Facebook page. Some will have more information there than on their web site.
Sometimes we’ve looked up the pastor’s Facebook profile if we don’t find much information on the church’s website or Facebook page.
Doing as much research as possible ahead of time will help you narrow down your church choices and hopefully avoid unpleasant surprises.
4. Arrive early for your first visit. We try to leave early for our first time at a church for several reasons: we don’t know what traffic will be like; we like to find out where to go and where bathrooms are; we want to allow time to chat if people stop to introduce themselves.
5. Be friendly. Many church members fail in greeting first-time visitors. But we can make it easier by being approachable, friendly, open-faced, even introducing ourselves first. If we scowl or avoid eye contact or arrive late and leave as soon as possible, we’re not giving people a chance to welcome us.
6. Go to a smaller service. Usually we just go to the main service for our first visit to a church. If all goes well, then we’ll go to Sunday School or a midweek prayer meeting. Those meetings are often where people are more open and friendly—I don’t know if it’s because the group is smaller, or they regard visitors to those services as less likely to be just passing through.
7. Go more than once. Unless something glaring comes up in our first visit, we go to a church we are considering at least twice, and usually much more often.
8. Don’t judge; give grace. At the church we belonged to when we were first married, we had a visitor once who griped about several things. While we were glad to have problems pointed out so we could correct them, it was dismaying that this man had so many complaints, and that he voiced them his first time there.
Sometimes things might be a little off during your visit—that’s one reason we try to go more than once. Sometimes the sound system will have problems one morning or someone will flub the announcements or misspeak. There might be dust and debris on the bathroom floors; maybe a cleaning crew member was sick or missed their rotation. Any number of things can go wrong–or at least not as well as hoped.
9. Jot down questions as they arise. We don’t usually fill out a visitor’s card. If we visit a couple of times and decide to move on, we don’t want to keep receiving letters or phone calls from a church.
But if we attend over several weeks, questions might come up about the pastor’s or church’s stand on particular issues. Sometimes we ask about those when chatting with the pastor after a service. Sometimes my husband will call the pastor during the week. Usually if we’re seriously considering membership, we’ll meet with the pastor or invite him and his family for dinner. We’ve found most pastors to be very open to questions.
10. There is no perfect church. A church is made up of imperfect people, so of course it’s not going to be perfect. We know that on one level, yet it’s easy to go from church to church without finding one that’s “just right.” With so many churches close by, it’s easy to think the ideal one with all the features we want might be the next one. And if family members disagree about what features they want, the decision is even harder.
The church my husband grew up in was the only Baptist church in an area dominated by a different sect. The church members just had to learn to get along and set aside their differences, because there was nowhere else to go. That’s not a bad scenario.
Lastly, don’t be like Mr. Bean. 🙂 I don’t know how everyone around him kept a straight face.
You want to look for a place where you can serve, not just a place where you can receive benefit. But for us, looking for specific ways to serve (beyond greeting, praying for people, showing kindness, pitching in, etc.) comes later as we see the needs and see where we best fit.
Eventually, God will lead us to the local church we can call home and settle into.
What has helped you as you have looked for a new church home?
Stray Thoughts 