May 16, 2009--Church stuff

Since Erick resigned from our church, we've been attending a church in a neighboring town and just taking time to get fed and to heal. We haven't really been looking for a church yet. We've been in the process of purchasing a house in that town, and talking with the pastor of that church about the possibilities of skateboard ministry there, and we're still waiting on that to find out what we're doing there. The kids have really enjoyed going to church with other kids again.

One of the other ministers in our ministry group pastors two churches, because one has been without a pastor for quite some time and is down to four members. It's under district supervision and has no board, and this guy is appointed by the district to oversee it. He's been talking to Erick about taking that church, and we weren't really sure about taking another church just yet. Some of the things he was telling us about it just sounded a little too similar to what we left, and we didn't want to go back into the same situation again.

A couple of days ago one of the ladies in the church actually called us asking us to come candidate. We met with the guy who is in charge there and told him we were actually hoping to wait until the fall to take another church, but we went up with him to look at the building yesterday finally and were surprised at how beautiful it is. The sanctuary is about twice as big as our old church, and even has a balcony. It's decorated in red and white with green ivy instead of the purple and yellow at the church we just left. It has a big new fellowship hall with six classrooms, including a game room, and a nice sound system, and downstairs there are more classrooms even though it needs some work down there. It was obvious from looking around that it used to be a happening church. There were props downstairs from plays they have done, and posters on the wall, and the organ was obviously a high-end piece back in the day, with a built-in cassette player.

Someone there seems to have an obsession with knick-knacks, though. On the communion table there were several little glass ladies' heads and shoulders wearing hats, and some little purse figurines and even shoe figurines. They have a different fiber-optic display on the communion table for each season, including a fiber optic eagle that flaps its wings. I thought that was very odd. I'm not big on figurines anyway, but most churches that I've seen with figurines usually stick with angels and crosses and stuff, not eagles and ladies' heads.

We're wanting to talk with some of the former pastors and find out the history here, and why they went from 250 members to about 5, give or take a few. We can't blame it on the building or the location, like at our last church. It's beautiful, inside and out, and in town in a good location. I want to know what happened and why everyone left. We aren't going to just jump into a church like we did last time. We were so excited before just to get a church, but this time we're going to be asking a lot more questions and take a lot more time to pray about it and seek God's will.