There’ll Be Peace When You Are Done

Note: If you really pay attention, the title of this post might make sense, when you are done.

I love Twitter and I love when someone has enough insight to pick up on something I say on Twitter. Colin Bell (@crb11) noticed 2 tweets that I posted about 4 minutes apart and I didn’t intend them to play off of each other but, in retrospect, there is much irony in what I shared.  However, there is so much more than what meets the eye, I think, so I wanted to write a post and share some insight into where I’m at in life.  From Colin’s post:

Just found the following two tweets from JimWalton, four minutes apart.

Today, for the first time in a long time, totally forgot my phone, church was twitter free. An odd experience for sure.

Church this morning was by far the best experience we have had in several years. A new church, kind of. Felt like home, we will be back.

Everything I said was true:

• I forgot my phone
• Church was Twitter-free
• Church was the best it has been in over 4 years.
• It was a new church, kind of
• Felt like we were home
• We will be back to that church

While it was unusual to not have my phone at church and it did remove the temptation to Tweet during church, it also meant that I didn’t have my Bible, which is YouVersion.  That was a greater inconvenience, by far.

Church was the best it had been for us in years. That is not an exaggeration and I realize I am treading a thin line here, mainly because I am going to come clean on some things and there might be some people/friends that read this blog and wonder how I can say what I’m about to say.

We left our church home, one of the larger churches in the area, near the end of 2005, in the early stages of a power struggle and that church is still feeling the repercussions of those events today. That was a difficult time for my entire family and without going into too much detail, it was just best for us to distance ourselves from the situation.

Since that time, we have attended 2 different churches, one for about a year and we liked it for the amazing teaching, verse by verse and very deep. (Church A)  The music was great too, the pastor was in a heavy metal band before being saved and he can still jam on the guitar.  That was a great church to heal in and after awhile, we looked around and realized we knew virtually no one, so we quietly left.

We had some friends that went to a church nearly around the corner from our house so we decided to give that a try.  It was good and we quickly settled in. (Church B)  Before too long, we became involved and began serving.  We worked hard to make that our church home and a place where we could connect but honestly, in a way, it never felt completely right. We spent about 2 years at this church and I was heavily involved in leading the tech ministry.  I have no regrets about my involvement there but there was something missing, it didn’t feel like home.

This is where the fine line comes in. I have some close friends in that church and I value them.  These are friends that love their church, but I could never fully embrace it with them.

Once again, we leave another church.  Some have called us church hoppers and that’s not too far from the truth, I guess, but each step has been intentional and it’s really not as shallow as it seems, I think. I honestly believe God is growing us through this and is preparing us for where He is leading us.

We visited a church where we know many people, my whole family has friends there and honestly, our kids had been coming to this church on Wednesday nights for awhile anyway. (Church C) We all felt like this would be a good place and some friends even said we were invited to be part of their home group.

So, obviously(?), we didn’t stick around Church C and we ended up back at Church A again.  We still appreciated the teaching style and made an attempt to make it work for our family.  After about 6 months, we looked around and realized we have absolutely no connections (just like the first time around) in that church and we are so hungry to be connected to people in our church again.

Once again, we leave Church A, apparently our healing church, for the second time, with very little fanfare. I still am willing to take the blame for my waywardness. (Insert Kansas song here: Carry on my wayward son lyrics)

One night recently, I told my wife that I felt like we needed to give Church C another try, based on all the friends we have there and the chance we have to connect and some other reasons, but primarily connection.  She had been thinking the same thing, so God had clearly been working in both of us and preparing us to make this final move.

Yes, I did say final move.

We visited this past Sunday and it felt like we were home again. Even though the senior pastor is on a 6 week sabbatical and some friends we expected to see were not there, we still left there with a feeling we haven’t felt in several years, like we were freely worshipping God with our church family.

I understand that church should not be based on feelings alone and honestly, this has a lot more to do with knowing in my heart that this is right and Mary feels in her heart like it is right and my kids feel in their heart that it’s right.

I have learned a lot in this journey and it is far from over. I have no regrets, I feel that the Lord has opened some doors of opportunity for me just as He has closed some and He has used many people to teach me to be obedient to His calling.

I hope I don’t forget my phone next time because I really did miss having YouVersion at my fingertips.

Maybe I’ll even Twitter about it.

Maybe I won’t.