I've been more or less just a visitor in several gatherings for the last two-and-a-half years. That's made it possible for me to really dodge responsibility in one sense. The hard work comes when we become part of a gathering in more than a "visitor" sense.
I realize in one sense there's no such thing as a "visitor," but you know what I mean.
For the last year, we've been driving an hour to meeting. We've really only been there Sunday mornings, and never really got past feeling like visitors. Perhaps there is some blame to go around on that one: perhaps it's not all on me. But in the end, we were really never more than very loosely "there". We participated to the extent one can when one is only there a couple meetings a week.
So as we take off our shoes (so to speak) and say, "This is where we are," there's now the part about having some responsibility in the gathering.
So we go from being visitors to having to contribute.
But the hardest part is to make the mental shift to realizing we can't just leave. I mean, we can, but we've got to get out of that "well, I guess we better find something else" mode. That's definitely the hard part.
Whether our being sort of long-term visitors for so long is my fault or not. Whether I was right or wrong to lead my family in this direction (and I really don't know), it's time to settle in.
We've been looking for that "Fr. Tim church" (a la Mitford) to settle into and can't seem to locate it. I'm beginning to think that as "sojourners and pilgrims" we never really "take off our shoes," but must be ready to march on at a moment's notice.
I haven't really been following your blog but thought I would ask about something.
My wife and I have been here and there "church-wise", sorta like you have. We have been to a few Brethren meetings over the years but never stayed, for various reasons. Now we live in southern Georgia, about 60 miles below Macon. For the most part all we find here are dead Southern Baptist churches.
We would like to find a place were there is some life and spiritual food. The assemblies generally seemed to "do it right".How can we find one that might be near? We are pretty conservative and have had enough liberalism to last us a lifetime.
6 comments:
I'm interested for you to expound on the "hard work."
Re: "hard work"
I've been more or less just a visitor in several gatherings for the last two-and-a-half years. That's made it possible for me to really dodge responsibility in one sense. The hard work comes when we become part of a gathering in more than a "visitor" sense.
I realize in one sense there's no such thing as a "visitor," but you know what I mean.
For the last year, we've been driving an hour to meeting. We've really only been there Sunday mornings, and never really got past feeling like visitors. Perhaps there is some blame to go around on that one: perhaps it's not all on me. But in the end, we were really never more than very loosely "there". We participated to the extent one can when one is only there a couple meetings a week.
So as we take off our shoes (so to speak) and say, "This is where we are," there's now the part about having some responsibility in the gathering.
So we go from being visitors to having to contribute.
But the hardest part is to make the mental shift to realizing we can't just leave. I mean, we can, but we've got to get out of that "well, I guess we better find something else" mode. That's definitely the hard part.
Whether our being sort of long-term visitors for so long is my fault or not. Whether I was right or wrong to lead my family in this direction (and I really don't know), it's time to settle in.
We've been looking for that "Fr. Tim church" (a la Mitford) to settle into and can't seem to locate it. I'm beginning to think that as "sojourners and pilgrims" we never really "take off our shoes," but must be ready to march on at a moment's notice.
I haven't really been following your blog but thought I would ask about something.
My wife and I have been here and there "church-wise", sorta like you have. We have been to a few Brethren meetings over the years but never stayed, for various reasons. Now we live in southern Georgia, about 60 miles below Macon. For the most part all we find here are dead Southern Baptist churches.
We would like to find a place were there is some life and spiritual food. The assemblies generally seemed to "do it right".How can we find one that might be near? We are pretty conservative and have had enough liberalism to last us a lifetime.
@Mark:
Email me. My address is at the bottom of the page. This is going to be a difficult conversation to have via blog comments.
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