Today Christopher and I are being brave and trying a new church. I have gone to the same church with my parents since middle school, so trying something new has taken a lot of thought and is a little scary.
When I was in about 7th or 8th grade my family left a large Methodist church, where I was involved in a big youth group. I had lots of friends, we had fun activity nights, summers filled with basketball and volleyball leagues and Jeremiahs's Italian Ice, plus Christopher was there... and you know how I feel about him! Once we landed at the church we currently attend I begrudgingly started going to their tiny youth group and fought tooth and nail with my parents pretty much weekly to still be able to go back to the Methodist church to see my friends. Eventually, I made friends at the new church, and wouldn't you know it I'm still friends with quite a few of those jokesters, two of them were even in my wedding! (Hi Miranda and Stacy!!)
Miranda is the only friend I have left at church, everyone else has moved away or gone somewhere else. For the last couple of years I have even been a nursery attendant with Miranda on the 4th Sunday of every month, and Christopher started playing in the worship band every once in a while. We kind of half way tried to get involved, but it's a little awkward. All of the other adults are my parents and their friends. I hang out with my parents all the time, as a family, but it's still a little weird to hang out with their friends. They all have grown kids, sometimes my age, and have watched me grow up. Because Christopher and I don't have kids and most of our friends do, it's been hard to see our parenting friends as often. They have play dates to attend, and kids with colds or budding teeth, and sometimes we get left out because we don't have a little person to bring to those play dates or anything to add to the discussion of butt creams and preschools. So we need to make some more friends, a set of friends that like board games and fire pits andHarry Potter Movie marathons movies and are in a similar place in life to us, young(ish) professionals(bahaha) that don't have kids yet. I don't want to hang out with baby haters, just people who haven't gotten to the kids portion of life just yet and maybe have a little more free time than our kid having friends. (I still love you baby making machines! Promise!)
Christopher and I have been talking about finding a new church for quite a while and around Thanksgiving we decided we would wait until after the holidays and then go church hunting. We have a few places we would like to try that are close by and seem OK. Now we just have to go visit. Visiting is the part that will take the longest. Our plan of attack is visit each church two Sundays in a row. Then we will decide which ones we want to visit again, never want to visit again, and could go either way on. We aren't stuck on a specific denomination, but we'd like to be somewhere with people closer to our age, with great music, and a pastor that is a good mix of serious and fun.
It will probably be at least summer before we pick somewhere, unless we go somewhere and just fall in love, or go to enough places that we hate and give up and go back to hanging out with my parents and their friends. It's a big decision to make and we want to make sure we choose somewhere that we fit in now, but has plenty of room for us to grow. Yano, stuff for those kids we might have one day, moms/dads groups, VBS, etc.
When I was in about 7th or 8th grade my family left a large Methodist church, where I was involved in a big youth group. I had lots of friends, we had fun activity nights, summers filled with basketball and volleyball leagues and Jeremiahs's Italian Ice, plus Christopher was there... and you know how I feel about him! Once we landed at the church we currently attend I begrudgingly started going to their tiny youth group and fought tooth and nail with my parents pretty much weekly to still be able to go back to the Methodist church to see my friends. Eventually, I made friends at the new church, and wouldn't you know it I'm still friends with quite a few of those jokesters, two of them were even in my wedding! (Hi Miranda and Stacy!!)
Miranda is the only friend I have left at church, everyone else has moved away or gone somewhere else. For the last couple of years I have even been a nursery attendant with Miranda on the 4th Sunday of every month, and Christopher started playing in the worship band every once in a while. We kind of half way tried to get involved, but it's a little awkward. All of the other adults are my parents and their friends. I hang out with my parents all the time, as a family, but it's still a little weird to hang out with their friends. They all have grown kids, sometimes my age, and have watched me grow up. Because Christopher and I don't have kids and most of our friends do, it's been hard to see our parenting friends as often. They have play dates to attend, and kids with colds or budding teeth, and sometimes we get left out because we don't have a little person to bring to those play dates or anything to add to the discussion of butt creams and preschools. So we need to make some more friends, a set of friends that like board games and fire pits and
Christopher and I have been talking about finding a new church for quite a while and around Thanksgiving we decided we would wait until after the holidays and then go church hunting. We have a few places we would like to try that are close by and seem OK. Now we just have to go visit. Visiting is the part that will take the longest. Our plan of attack is visit each church two Sundays in a row. Then we will decide which ones we want to visit again, never want to visit again, and could go either way on. We aren't stuck on a specific denomination, but we'd like to be somewhere with people closer to our age, with great music, and a pastor that is a good mix of serious and fun.
It will probably be at least summer before we pick somewhere, unless we go somewhere and just fall in love, or go to enough places that we hate and give up and go back to hanging out with my parents and their friends. It's a big decision to make and we want to make sure we choose somewhere that we fit in now, but has plenty of room for us to grow. Yano, stuff for those kids we might have one day, moms/dads groups, VBS, etc.