Movin' On Up....

I haven't written about this subject because I felt bad. Then I realized I have no reason to feel bad and maybe talking about it will help someone.

About a year and a half ago, I got involved in playgroup through a friend at Bekah's preschool. It was a lot of fun and helped me make some great connections. We were all Christians and so the inevitable "where do you go to church" conversation came up. I found out that most of the ladies had, at one point in time, attended the same church. Many had left and were searching for new congregations to join.

I invited them to visit our church, The Chapel. It's a multi-campus church, similar to but smaller than Willow Creek. We started attending just after we moved out to Crystal Lake about six years ago. The Barrington campus (TCB for short) opened around that time and we dove in.

We have loved attending the church. We participated in a few small groups, have had all of our children dedicated there and most importantly, Brian came to Christ at TCB. It holds a lot of special memories for us.

The problem is that we are in Crystal Lake and Barrington is about 25-30 minutes away. That means that it's quite a hike on a Sunday morning. Jeremy and Bekah have made many friends there, but they all live in the area around the church. This has made it impossible to do play dates, to get to know the friends or their parents better, to do family get-togethers, etc., etc.

So last year, when I recommended my church, I did so half-heartedly. I think it's worth the drive, but it has severely limited our involvement in the church. We can attend on Sunday mornings and that's pretty much it. Brian works in Northbrook and doesn't get home until around 6 PM. That means, if there is a mid-week service or some event on the weekend, it's nearly impossible for us to eat dinner and make it by the time the event starts. Plus, we have to add on the half-hour commute to the back-end of the event. This usually translates to tired kiddos.

I love my church, but one of the ladies said something that planted a seed for me. She talked about wanting to have a church nearby so that her kids could get involved in the youth group. "Well," I said, "that won't be happening for a few years." Her response made me really stop and think. Realistically, you don't want to find a church for your kids with a great youth group as they are entering middle school. By then, people in the youth group have already known each other and formed relationships. The key is to have the kids there almost from the beginning, so they can form the long-term relationships that will only strengthen in the middle school years.

I hadn't thought of that before. I had a rough go of it regarding youth groups. My childhood church dissolved just before I entered high school. It had been a church plant and so a lot of the people went back to the "mother" church. We did not. We started a quest for a new church. It was awkward, trying to insert myself into groups where the kids had grown up knowing each other. They didn't exclude me on purpose but they were just closer by default and so it made it weird.

From that point on, I feel like God started working on me about switching churches. I might have had a conversation about it with Brian, but my memory is a little blank there. Mostly I prayed about it.

I also joined MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) at the Evangelical Free Church of Crystal Lake. I had heard fantastic things about it from a mom and daughter who were involved there. I decided though I knew only 1 person joining, I would give it a try.

It has been an amazing experience!! I fell right into things with both my table-mates and the MOPS group as a whole. I had done a Bible study at the church last summer, so I knew faces but not names and had no real relationship with anyone.

Meanwhile, we had been meeting with a small group but it started to unravel. Jeremy was the main problem. We had not started him on medication yet and so he got very overwhelmed being in our friends basement with all the other kids. He was pushing a lot, scratched one of the kids and tackled another. Usually our nights ended with me in tears and Brian taking him out to our van. Though we loved the other families, it became an exercise in futility for us. We decided, even after changing the night we met, that we would stop attending. It was a tough decision to make but absolutely the right one for our family.

I decided to step up and start serving on the steering committee for MOPS. I had a great conversation with the Director of Women's Ministries at Chick-fil-A one morning. I told her I was feeling led to bring our family over to the E Free church. She got excited and said, "do it," but then corrected herself and said to pray about it and let my husband lead us there. She did say it was okay to have a conversation with him about it and so I did.

I let him know that I was lonely at TCB. I have good friends there but geography makes it tough to get together. The kids aren't seeing anyone at church that they see at school (or anywhere else nearby) on a regular basis. What happens when they get to youth group? Are we going to want to drive them back and forth midweek? It's also an economical issue. Gas is expensive and it's tough to think about driving an hour (round trip) to church every Sunday. It's tough to not know anyone in our neighborhood that goes to our church.

He listened and nodded and agreed with me. We decided that we didn't need to make a quick transition. We serve in the children's ministry once a month. The summer is a tough time to fill spots. We wanted to finish out the season of serving and not leave our leader in a tough spot.

Further, we weren't running from anything--conflict, people, controversy, bad doctrine. There was nothing that happened at the Chapel that made us feel like we needed to make a hasty exit. The teaching is solid, we love our pastors, we enjoy the children's program, we have great friends that we have made there.

It's just not in our neighborhood. It's not really our community because we are so far (physically) removed from it.

I have to say, I was initially excited about this decision. I was glad to be closer to home, I was glad to see familiar faces and have a home church. Now I feel flat about it and I can't figure it out. I know it's the right church for us and I love it, love the pastors, love the teaching, everything.

I have decided not to trust my feelings for right now. I know that feelings are fleeting and not always the truth. I will continue to talk to God about it and see what he has to say about all of it. I am very glad, though, that Brian is comfortable there and the kids are happy. Those are bigger deals than how I am feeling.

So I'm gonna go with that for now.