Trying Church Again

Ain't no reason to go in a wagon to town

Ain't no reason to go to the fair

Ain't no reason to go up, ain't no reason to go down

Ain't no reason to go anywhere.

Time Passes Slowly- Bob Dylan

In 2008, we were not going to church at all and that was fine by me. My husband was starting to feel like we should start trying to find one to go to, though. He was listening to quite a bit of Christian radio and I think something he heard there convicted him that we needed to be in a group of the faithful. I didn't feel the same way, but then again, I had a few groups on the web for Christian fellowship. However, the kids being home schooled didn't give them any social network of peers to speak of, which was starting to concern me, so I did think getting them into something would be beneficial. My husband's desire was to find a place to worship with like-minded believers without the heavy indoctrination that Catholicism required. He said that we had a whole bookshelf of Bibles and didn't need to gel 100% with any church's doctrine, but we did have a few things we were looking for in a place of worship.



The two biggest of these were an emphasis in absolute grace over works for salvation and the general dispensational premillenial scheme of eschatology. We had visited a Vineyard church once, but it really wasn't our speed, plus they were amillennial, a big no no to me.



We looked around on the web for a few weeks and found a place not too far away that sold us when the phrase 70th Week of Daniel was included in the statement of faith. He went to check it out a couple of times before we started going as a family.  He was enthusiastic to start not only going to service, but to Sunday school as well. He explained how the kids would be in their programs and we could join a Bible study group ourselves. I wasn't quite ready for all that, but saw that this was important to him, so we decided to go for it.




The first day we decided to all go together there was tons of snow in the driveway and I thought it wasn't going to happen, but he shoveled us out enough to get there.



The church was warm and inviting and everyone was so genuinely nice.  The kids were all put in their age appropriate Sunday school classes and I went to the nursery with my littlest who was only about five months old and still nursing so frequently that we were hardly ever apart. I remember being so nervous and talking some of the ladies heads off that morning while waiting for classes and the service to be over. I was so uneasy about doing church again, but was willing to give this an honest try since my husband seemed very excited about it.  I didn't leave the baby in the nursery for the next couple of weeks, but then joined in on the adult Sunday school classes and service with my husband. It looked as though had found the Bible believing church that we wanted.




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