Changing Churches

After the last Ladies Night Out, April 7, I came home and my husband started talking with me. He felt that the time was right for us to change churches. As I was listening to him, I had many different emotions. I had wanted to change churches several years ago, when I had babies and there was no nursery provided. I was struggling then. Now it was different. We were teaching the high school, college class on Sunday morning. I had just started teaching the Ladies Night Out. I was feeling useful; I was feeling like I was making a difference. As I listened to the conversation, I quickly noticed all of the "I." It really did not matter what I was feeling. My husband, who is the head of my home, who is held responsible for our family's salvation, was not feeling the same things that I was feeling. In fact he was feeling hurt, devalued, and stunted in his growth and the things that he could accomplish there. So we needed to take action.

We talked with many different older men about the situation trying to make a wise decision. Next, was talking to the correct people at our church to make sure that no one took it personally that we were leaving. There was a brand new youth minister; he needed to know that it had nothing to do with him. We needed to talk with the preacher and let him know that it was not his fault. He was the reason that we had stuck it out this long. But, lets face it, you cannot go to church for one man, you must go for your relationship with God. So this is what we have done. I am so glad that we have made the transformation. We are feeling connected and see many opportunities to serve God in our new church home.

In saying all of this, I have to talk about the other...We have not received one phone call. Not one person has asked us what happened. We hear from others, "that everyone knows", but the ones we are hearing it from are not the full time members there. Not one phone call! I am not sure how to take this. It is not like we were just another family who was continually jumping churches. We had been there, at that church, for many years. My husband grew up there. I have been going there ever since I moved to town, over 7 yrs ago. We were teaching classes, we were trying to be involved. As I watch this unfold, I can see how people can become so hurt and so turned off from "church." I am not really that hurt or surprised. People have their own lives, they have their own struggles. I see how I have been that person. I have been that person who should have picked up the phone. I have been the one giving hugs Sunday morning, putting on the "Sunday smile." Then we leave "church" and enter into our own world. We say we are a body that needs every part, but is the part really missing when someone leaves. I have heard the saying, "If you throw a frog in boiling water it will jump out, but if you turn up the heat slowly it will cook itself." I don't feel like anything we did was slow. We were teaching one Sunday and at a new church the next. Not one phone call, not one.

I have to look at this as a growing opportunity. I feel like, many times you cannot relate with others in their struggle, unless you have either been through it personally or witnessed it first hand. Now I know. My eyes have been opened. Will I miss it in the future, when this happens to someone? I am sure that I will. But I will be more aware. Even when it feels uncomfortable, I will have to pick up that phone, to make that one phone call. God has shown me a valuable lesson that I was failing with in the past. I hope I have learned from this experience, so that I do not make this mistake any longer. This is when you can consider it joy when you go through trials. They are times to learn from and grow.