Posted in Family Life

Church photo from Kelly's Art Explosion Publisher Pro 2004

Hubby and I grew up "in the church."  He, an Assembly of God guy, and I started out Catholic and then went to Non-Denominational Christian. We both came into salvation at very young ages, and attended the same churches for years and years.  It was the norm to attend Sunday morning and evening services, along with Wednesday night youth group, not-to-mention once a week "home fellowship" group. All of our friends have been christians, and most of our relatives -- a legacy of strong faith in both families. 

However, our nice little spiritual bubble burst in 2001 when Hubby’s employment transferred us to several states around the US, far away from the familiar family, friends and spiritual support system we knew, which exposed us to quite a few “interesting churches and people.”  Our relocation’s were from Texas to Connecticut, and then Connecticut to Minnesota. I remember friends encouraging us to get "planted" right away in a local church once we moved.  Good advice indeed, and would have been so easy had there been churches near us which were relavent. 

Ya see . . . in Connecticut there is a whole new dimension of "church" going on, and definitely cut from a different pattern than glorious “Bible Belt” Texas. In Texas we could find a full-gospel, Bible believing, Holy Spirit-Filled Body of believers just about on any corner.  However, in Connecticut it was much harder to find such churches, and in fact . . . it was much like finding a needle in a haystack, or signs of life in a graveyard.

We had to travel 2 hours each way to attend our “local” church each Sunday.  It was very hard to get to know people and a sense of authentic community was diminished because of our travel times.  It was very disillusioning not being able to find a church home that really felt like “home.”  It was almost as if we were perpetual strangers in a foreign land.  I thought to myself, “What do missionaries do when there aren’t other believer’s around?” Because that is what we felt like; missionaries in a foreign land. Simply answered . . . they go and make believer’s for which they can truly fellowship with, and gather together. In Mark 16:15 Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.”   And in Matthew 28:19 “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Who?  Us Lord?  Go and make disciples?  We are just simple church-going people who like our normalcy and comfy-cozy christianity where everybody thinks exactly the same way we do. Ahhhh . . . complacency . . . ZAP!  So our journey out of complacency began and what we found was absolutely nothing familiar except the Love of Jesus Christ towards us as we learned to reach outside of our comfy four walls of familiarity and out into the world.

So what we started to do was simply follow what the Lord showed us to do, which was quite different than the normal predictable Sunday, dress-up and go to church thing-a-ma-bob.  We decided to firstly have church in our home. Now this was rather new to us at the time and there weren’t any formulas for how to do church at home.  Hubby would grab the Bible and we would all read it together and then talk about what we read, along with daily prayer together.  We started inviting neighbors and business associates over for dinner and would gently talk with them about the Lord.  Some would be open and share their views, while others would tell us, “There are two things we do not talk about . . . religion and politics!”  Yet they loved coming over and sitting and spending time with us. I knew they could feel the love of the Lord and wanted more. There in our home we witnessed a great transformation.  Not only within us and our small family unit, but within the hearts of several who came through our doors.  Our walls of prejudice came rushing down.

There was even one dear woman whom I invited over for lunch who could not even come very far into our home, because she broke out into hives.  Later on I found out she was Gnostic Pagan, and my vigilant prayer-warrior Mom (back in Tx.) told us she had prayed that no evil would be able to enter our home that day. For the rest of our time together we sat outside on our front lawn, and talked about religion, life and her journey.  I continued to try and reach this dear woman, and when I think of her I still pray for her salvation, however she was pretty set on her religion, which was a mixture of Paganism, Catholicism and Wicca. 

[For clarity sake I do not believe this woman was evil, however she clearly would not declare that Jesus Christ was her Lord and Savior, so the spirits that were afflicting her were not of God, and because she was on our property (which had been dedicated to the Lord) the spirits that were oppressing her could not operate as normal. That is why she was not able to enter our home, and broke out into hives.] For more info please see 1 John 4:1-4 

I felt very honored and humbled by the experiences we had in Connecticut.  It really opened our spiritual eyes and made us realize how very sheltered we were back in Texas, and how very much we weren’t reaching out to the world and truly loving people and ministering outside our circle of comfort.  Even though we were now in a very dark spiritual place (New England), we could see God’s hand sustaining us, and His word speaking LIFE to us. 

How could God possibly keep us sustained and NOT be in a local church?  It just baffled our minds, and went against everything we were taught growing up in the faith.  However, we now know that when God calls His people to do something He is the one who sustains them.  Just as the Isrealites were sustained by the Manna for 40 years in the wilderness, for us . . .  living in Connecticut meant having church at home, and being spiritually nurtured by "The Bread of Life" [Jesus Christ and His Word] alone (see John 6:31-35). It was extremely lonely at times, but vital for us to walk through, so we no longer idolized the church and placed it before Him.

Then God moved us to Minnesota.  Wow, what a wonderful place!  We were excited to find many churches to choose from, and plenty of fellow believers’ in Christ for which to find fellowship.  We didn’t even know where to begin and which churches to visit first.  We took a few years to simply visit local churches and find out what their theme, and core beliefs were.  We paid close attention to church websites, mission statements, and depth of teaching.  It is interesting how “diverse” churches have become since our first journey out of Texas.  There is just about every flavor imaginable, from strict conservative to “yell, scream and shout” churches, and now the "seeker-friendly" versions. We even found a house church here, for which we enjoyed until about three months ago. However, we have come full circle now and are in a regular full-gospel church.

Our journey has taught us never to allow complacency or familiarity to lead us, but to always be led by the Lord Jesus Christ in all things.  I am thankful for the lessons along the way and for the Lord opening our eyes to see different ways of doing “Church.”  In the coming months we will be sharing some of the “not so nice” things we have come across on our church journeys, so we can warn and caution others - one including the new “Emergent Church” philosophy that is penetrating this area.  I won’t go into that now, but just wanted to share with you what our journey has been thus far.  We are so blessed to be in a wonderful and healthy Body of Believer’s here in Minnesota and cannot wait to share the good news and fruit that comes from this. How thankful we are for what God has brought us through and now into.  To Him be the glory J

 What is your church journey? We would love to hear :-)