If you have read or heard anything that I have written or my wife has had to say, we have gotten to a point where we do not feel comfortable in church. Because of that it had become a struggle every week to even make it to church. In fact, we would find excuses to not attend church. I would bet that over the past 6 months we have not attended more than we have attended church. I had forgotten just how much break ups can hurt, and was quickly reminded of it this year.
Since March we have tried various churches. We have visited some really good churches. Some of them were more appealing than others, but something was always missing. None of them felt like home. Maybe there was too much pop psychology for us and not enough Jesus. Maybe the worship music was not what we needed: either too traditional or they played secular music. Maybe they did not have a recovery program or their children’s program was not what we needed. Something was missing, so my wife and I compiled a list of what we wanted in a home church.
It turns out there are a lot of things that my wife and I wanted to find in our church:
1. A sermon that was Biblically sound with a lot of meat and little fluff
2. A great kids program
3. A worship team that played worship music
4. A recovery program
5. Sunday school
6. An accessible pastor that tended his flock
My wife and I started exploring various churches, looking for ones that met our criteria. She sent me a link for Glendale Christian Church (GCC). I went to their site and read about it. Everything looked good. I then listened to a couple of the sermons they had posted, and the message sounded great. They even had their worship songs listed on the site, and the sets were amazing. So, we decided to give it a shot.
Two Sundays ago we went there for the first time. At most of the churches we had tried something had gone wrong or sounded wrong or simply did not fit our needs. Glendale hit on everything on our list, going above and beyond our expectations on almost all of them. It all began in the daycare when we first came inside.
We walked in and went to the daycare to drop off our daughter, Addison. She normally cries when we hand her over to the daycare workers. I sat her on the floor so I could fill out her sticker, and the door to the daycare opened up as someone else put their kids in and she just walked inside and started playing. We then asked a guy about classes for my son. He said that DJ would go up after worship to his class. He then found us 10 minutes later inside of the congregation and said that he was wrong, and DJ could go to his class now.
I took DJ up to his class and dropped him off. My son knew the song they were worshipping to and took off inside. I went back down and listened to the sermon. I enjoyed the sermon, and the worship music they played really primed me to receive the message it contained. Then we went to get DJ from class. Normally, when I pick DJ up from class and ask him what he learned he tells me he doesn’t remember. This time he was able to list several people from the Bible they had talked about as well as two of the songs they had sang in worship.
We did not stay for Sunday school the first week, as we already had other plans. So we picked up DJ and left. I figured that they would send us a form letter or give us a call during the week. I was wrong. Instead, the senior pastor showed up at the house with fresh baked bread and talked to Julie for a while. He left there headed to several other people’s houses. Not going to lie, that really impressed me a lot. It might have made a bigger impression on me than anything.
Friday we attended the Celebrate Recovery (CR) group at Glendale. It was everything that a CR should be. Friendly, happy, safe and you feel that you can talk about the things that you need to share and no one will judge you or look at you differently. The Celebrate Recovery Missouri State representative goes to GCC. I was glad they had a CR over any of the other recovery groups I have ever attended. I love CR in particular because of the change it has made in my life, so I was very happy to go to another one and can envision myself becoming a productive part of it in the future.
We came back and attended GCC again this past Sunday. I heard one of the best worship services I have sat through (ever) and the sermon focused on fulfilling our Christian commission by going into jails and/or prisons if we felt called to do so as part of their prison ministry. This time we went to Sunday school and it was also really good. After Julie and I left we talked about our experience there. We had each encountered so many positives that we both had reached the same conclusion ……….we had found our new home!
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