New Church

So Kyle and I haven't found a real church home ever since we had a falling out at our previous church here. I went to church service there once or twice since that new minister started but didn't really connect with his message and wasn't really impressed with his sermons. What made matters more difficult was that almost all of the friends I had made there over the last year all left, just like that. They all left for different reasons but I think that the previous pastor leaving severed a hole in the congregation. In less than a month almost all of the young adults left, several of the young families stopped coming and the music director left. It was a really sad situation.

It was hard to leave and part of me wanted to stay there out of principle, (to support the minister, even if I didn't really get a lot out of it) but I wasn't getting as much fulfillment out of it spiritually anymore. Well I stopped going, frankly when you can only go twice a month because of work it's easy to think of excuses to sleep in the few Sundays that you do have off. I also felt uncomfortable starting to go to a new church when Kyle was still deployed. When he came home we went to a larger church in La Jolla for advent and Christmas services but we never really connected there either. I don't know about you other church goers but trying to find a new church home after being raised in one church family primarily for me is like trying to replace a long time boyfriend with one that makes you feel just as good right off the bat. You need to feel the *spark* if you know what I mean.

So we went to this second church for lack of a better option for Easter, then a few scattered Sundays but then stopped going all together for a month. Then one month turned into two and before you know it 6 months had gone by. We were "flailing" as I like to call it. We were both frustrated with our lack of attending church, but neither of us had any drive to start going again.

So finally last week I got sick of my own attitude and started looking for churches on google maps. I found one close to us that looked promising and went to their website. Looked like a church right up my ally; close to home, large congregation and music program (I was really active in the choir at my old church) so I asked Kyle if he wanted to go this Sunday. Today we went to the service.

It was awesome. It has all the benefits of going to a large church (very active in the community, lots of classes and support groups) without really feeling like a large church. The service was impressive, the sermon moving, the choir - amazing. Several times we were welcomed and shown around, introduced to different people and everyone was very warm and kind to us. Finally after almost a year I had felt *sparks*

I have my New Church.