WARNING: God/church talk ahead.  Deal with it, my legions of atheist friends!

I imagine my “why I stopped going to church” story is the same as most people.  In high school, I was very active in my church’s youth group, loved my church, felt interested and challenged.  I left for college at age 17, and while I made a few attempts to stay active while in school, my weekend activities made it more than a little difficult to wake up early and go to church.  To complicate matters further, while I was away, my parents switched churches for complicated reasons and I found myself a member of a new church that I barely visited and also couldn’t stand.  The sermons and lessons rarely went beyond the surface level of “Jesus loves you, everything’s okay.”  Also, in thinly-veiled attempts to become “more contemporary”, the church service became a bit of a sideshow complete with giant megascreens installed, liturgical dance numbers, and other sources of embarrassment transfer.

After visiting my parents several years ago and attending a cringe-worthy Christmas Eve service complete with LIVE NATIVITY SCENE (with a REAL CAMEL!), I quietly made a promise to myself to find a church I could call home - with all the things that I knew would make me happy.

Fast forward several years later.  Obviously, keeping this promise became a little harder than I thought.  Finding the motivation and being willing to put yourself out there is not an easy task.  The alternate option, doing nothing, especially on a Sunday, can be a difficult temptation to overcome.

Lauren and I have had many conversations about church and faith and I knew she had some of the same struggles I had and so, when she moved down here, I decided to take the church search more seriously.  Together, we’d find a church home that felt right for us.

A few weeks ago, we attended a “Bluegrass Mass” at St. Thomas Episcopal Church and yesterday we attended a service at the City Church of Richmond.  There were things I loved about each service and I think Lauren and I both found different aspects of each service a little disorienting too.  With Lauren’s Catholic background and my Presbyterian background, it’s hard to find that perfect bridge between the two.

That being said, yesterday’s service at City Church definitely resonated with me.  While I definitely had a solid inward cringe that there was a “worship band”, the service itself was moving and had a really great message that was as relevant as it was thoughtful.  The service didn’t shy away from a difficult topic and it went a long way to acknowledge that we are imperfect people, and that’s okay.  I don’t know… it stuck with me throughout the rest of the day in a way that a sermon hasn’t in a long time.  By the end of the service, I even found myself enjoying the music a little - which is a BIG DEAL FOR ME.

After thinking about it for most of the day, I realized that maybe I need to keep more of an open mind moving forward.  Worry less about the music, and more about the feeling of belonging/community.  Less about aesthetics and more about God.  If I feel a little uncomfortable, well, maybe that’s a good thing.

So, the search continues.  Our short list has a few more churches in it, so we’re going to check out a few more places and also have some return visits planned.  The one thing I don’t want to do is rush into a decision.  My relationship with God over the past decade has been a personal one, without the support of a church or a community, and while I don’t feel like my faith has been damaged or faded, it IS rusty… and finding a place to practice that faith is something that I’m really happy to finally work on again.  It feels even sweeter knowing that I’m doing this with Lauren and this is something we can share together.