One of the things that has been very challenging for Michele and me is finding a new church home, a place where we feel connected and part of a community. We tried a local church for much of the past two and a half years and it simply wasn’t working. Although many people there showed kindness to us, which we really appreciated, we never felt integrated or part of the place. Instead, we tended to feel like outsiders. We also did not feel “connected” during worship time, mainly because we were too distracted by the music (well, not so much the music itself, but the way in which it was played and/or sung). Instead of helping us focus attention on God, worship time tended to invoke frustration. We have tried many other churches in the area with little sense of success (if that’s the right word to use). As a result, we have not been very motivated to make the effort to go out on Sunday morning to attend church. Compounding the problem has been the natural course of events that tends to prevent us from getting out: one or more children are sick, one of us is sick, we had little sleep the night before, or we are away from home visiting one side of the family or the other. Then, too, we are not a typical family. When we look for or try to fit in with a church community, it seems that we don’t fit with the newly married set, we don’t fit with the very young children set, etc. etc. We have a 12 year old plus three children, ages three and under.

This is a serious problem and we have felt quite isolated for a long time. More recently we have been greatly encouraged by attending a church in a nearby city that’s about a half hour away. Unlike other places we’ve been, we don’t feel out of place there. The worship time is well done and truly points us Godward. The content of the sermons is thought-provoking and timely. Doctrinally, we are in agreement with the church’s positions. We have only been there about four times, but each time I go, I come away with several impressions of scripture and a sense of being spiritually refreshed. We struggle a bit with the kids in the sense of getting them used to going on their own to designated rooms. Brinley usually cries a lot and Tristan sometimes just refuses to join his class. Yesterday, though, everything worked out well. Even Cohen behaved! He slept through most of the service. Talk about an answer to many fervent prayers from Michele and me! Now we just hope (and pray) for personal connections and the ability to make friends with others there.

The sermon yesterday was on Daniel chapter 3 and the main focus was on integrity. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are some of the strongest examples of integrity in the face of great, life-threatening danger that are to be found anywhere in the Bible. Are we ready to truly stand for what we believe? It made me think. We live in a highly pluralistic society where there is very real and increasing hostility to the Christian faith, even in a supposedly “Christian” (I use the quotes on purpose) country like the USA. Those who put Christ first are viewed as intolerant, bigoted, even sometimes racist. I would like to say that I am unaffected by this climate, but I’m not. It is a source of great concern to me, particularly in my interactions professionally as a librarian. The issue of open hostility to Christianity is even more obvious in this election year. I don’t know if George Bush truly is a Christ-follower–only God knows for sure–but he professes to be one. If he is, I am very thankful for that, even if there are many elements of his administration and policies with which I am in disagreement. My point is that his openness about his faith is a huge source of suspicion, fear, and downright hatred in today’s world. I think this is a “sign of the times” and that this atmosphere will only get worse. I am not big on Biblical prophecy but it seems pretty clear to me that what I see happening around me is what is predicted in scripture. I think of part of Romans 1:21-32 that says “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened…since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.”