THE CHURCH

I wrote this post a year ago and never published it, so some of this information is outdated but still my heart.

So I don't have a church home and it really sucks. I left my church a couple of months ago and have been looking ever since. I live right in the middle of the church capital of the world (that is not a verifiable fact. just seems that way. I mean Lifeway is headquartered here) and I cannot find one. I will not go into the details of why I left my church, but it was a painful and hard decision. They were my family, so needless to say there are healing wounds. Those wounds follow me as I visit other churches. I am having such a hard time trusting and not seeing the new churches through the lens of my old church. There are certain aspects of church that are deal breakers for me and some are really strong preferences. I know that the leadership of any church is not perfect, but I do expect them to live a life submitted to God and to admit when things are going wrong. I expect humility but understand that there may be slip ups.

The church I'm visiting now- the pastor is completely humble. There is no question of his motives. I haven't visited long enough, but I expect that he is going to have prideful moments. Overall though, his humility is apparent. Moment of uncomfortable honesty here- I don't think people would label me as humble person. That struggle is real. Does it make me a hypocrite because I want a humble pastor and I am not totally humble myself? Maybe. I joke with my friends that God gave me certain features to keep me humble. Yall, I have no butt. It's so flat. If I had a perfect booty, I'd think my poo didn't stink. I consider the extra pounds I'm carrying humility insurance. If I was supermodel thin and beautiful, I'd be the worst.

Worship at church is a big deal to me too. I have never been a worship leader so what do I know, but I do pay close attention to the way the worship leader carries him/herself. Again, I'm looking for humility here. I think it would be so hard to lead worship and have an amazing voice and to not make it about yourself, but make that worship moment about God. I cannot even imagine how hard that is. 

The church building. Here comes the controversy. So, I have all kinds of mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, God doesn't have a limit to His bank account. He is the Creator of all things. He can do what He wants. So if God wanted Church XYZ to have this most beautiful and state-of-the-art church building, I have no doubt that He could and would make it happen. I'm just not sure He actually cares about all of that. His temple back in the day of David was super pimped out. No question. That also muddies this argument a bit. For me, having the latest equipment is not necessary to worshipping God. Having a massive building isn't necessary either. There are a lot of great massive churches out there and some of my favorite preachers preach at them (hello Matt Chandler and The Village Church). I'm not saying those are all bad. In general though, I am not a fan of big fancy church building and million dollar building campaigns. There are people starving to death. Let's get some perspective. More uncomfortable honesty- I need that perspective myself. Ugh. I have too many things. I am not a good steward of my money. I could give more. I could give my time more. Does wanting that from my church make me a hypocrite? Definitely.

Community is probably one of the most important parts of church. For a long time I had a really solid community with my former church. I could even call one of them up today and they'd help me if I had a need. The strong community was what made leaving so hard. Thankfully I am still in community with a lot of them. So the church I'm visiting now is based in my community in Nashville which is East Nashville/Inglewood. However, it is a church plant from another church in another community which is 20 minutes away. That's no problem. The problem is most of the people that go to the church still live in that community. Most of the small groups happen outside of East Nashville/Inglewood. I feel like if you are planting a church in a new community, you need to be all in. I understand not everyone can pack up and move, but it's weird that you have a church in one community but live in another. So I gotta dig deeper with this church and see what the deal is.