i love the term church shopping. as an illustration of the priorities of American culture, the irony is delicious, like maple syrup.

part of the reason we are moving north is to make our proverbial home as a family – settle into a “permanent” place and grow some roots. hopefully that will include a church where we feel at home, a place that feels right to stick a root or two.

i learned the importance of finding a church, joining its family and living life as a part of its community, from lifespring, but strangely enough i never quite settled there. the people we really clicked with all ended up leaving, and even though we attended together for several of the years we dated, and the past three married years, it never felt like our church. we had different relationships with the place, i guess. there was a sort of barrier to settling there because of it… i guess in the back of my mind it was always a rest stop, never quite the destination.

i am trying to quantify the reasons that my roots at lifespring were so shallow, and bear those in mind while we are checking out new places. sort of a ‘must haves’ list, or if you are a GE employee, CTQ’s. (the fact that CTQ was the first term to come to mind is rather disgusting)

• we need to want to be there. i want to look forward to showing up most of the time; i don’t want to find myself dreaming up excuses to skip the night before.
• we need to click with the people – and that doesn’t mean they need to be clones of us, or even match our age/place in life exactly. we learned a ton from folks who were older and younger than us at lifespring. but i am hoping to run into folks that match our personality as a couple, that we would enjoy hanging out with outside the church.
• i want to learn. this is the toughest part about leaving lifespring – dudes that preach are smart.
• i want worship to actually matter to me there, to stir me to praise. something i haven’t felt for a long time at lifespring. again, there are talented musicians and great leaders there, it’s not their fault, it’s like someone who can cook great onion soup trying to serve it to someone who doesn’t like onion soup.
• i don’t want to be guilted in to doing work. i got asked to do a ton at lifespring – tech stuff, children’s ministry, high-school ministry, college ministry, post-college ministry, leading a small group, outreach, greeting, setup… the ratio of things i agreed to do / the things i turned down was low, but still i felt pressured a ton to work for these folks and i usually had a dozen other things i was juggling at the same time.
• i want opportunities to give financially, to urge me to be generous and not selfish, to do stuff locally and around the world.

behold my shopping list! maybe i should shove this arrogant little pile of junk somewhere and let God put us where He puts us. and not, you know, lean on my own understanding. the truth is i really don’t know what the “right” church would look like, and i am uncertain as to how much it matters, compared to how God and I are doing between the two of us at any given moment.