If you remember a few weeks ago, I wrote about my spiritual struggle. Well … I’m no longer struggling. We took the advice of pretty much everyone and tried out a new church on Sunday.
Wow.
All I can say is that the buzzing atmosphere alone when we first walked in was completely different than “our” church. And the kids! There were kids everywhere!! At our church, I could probably count the number of kids on two hands. There were too many to count at this new church. And there’s a PreK Sunday School class. With three teachers. The only option at our church is the nursery.
The minister is a young guy (with a Southern accent heh) who has a lot of energy and seemed to be fairly upbeat. His sermon was short and to the point. The hymns were upbeat. The woman sitting next to us kept looking over at us with the three kids (who stayed upstairs for the entire service) and smiling. She was super nice and chatted with us afterward about how things work and some opportunities and things.
The second-in-command minister (I have no idea what her actual title is) recognized us as new people and came over after the service to chat and give us a tour! She brought us down to the nursery and to see the PreK room and to meet all of the teachers. They have a (paid) dedicated woman in the nursery and then members rotate through the Sundays to help out…there is never just one adult with any of the kids at any time. Same with all of the Sunday school classes.
They have a whole system for dropping off and picking up kids, and they keep the kids – both in the nursery and in Sunday school – THROUGH coffee hour!! Mike and I can hold adult conversations without interruption! Holy cow.
I didn’t really realize how uptight I was about the whole thing until the peaceful, relaxing feeling came over me when we got home that afternoon. It’s amazing what you realize after the fact.
The clincher for me though, is that this church says “trespasses” during the Lord’s Prayer instead of “debts” LOL Since I grew up with the “trespasses” version, my brain freezes a bit when we hit the “debts” part at our church.
…Or should I say, our old church.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: church, peace, spiritual guidance | 11 Comments »
The Zimmer Zoo 