Church Change Post #2
This is the second of a series of excerpts from posts I made on ExWitch regarding our church change - with edits and so forth for clarity. I’ll be posting a few of these, with “logical” (well, maybe only to me) breaks in the timing of all of the events, until I bring it current.
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Wow.
The thought of leaving Calvary - EVER, ever, ever, ever - hadn’t really entered my mind.
There’s a little, and I do mean LITTLE, AoG church practically around the corner from us. Not quite walking distance but not too
much farther. (in fact, it’s three minutes away, driving - just over two miles).
When we moved, we said, “Should we go there? Ummmmmmm….” prayed about it briefly, and never felt really led to.
Ken and I had talked about changing churchesy when we moved down here a few years ago, and quickly dismissed the notion altogether.
Not only did we not feel led to do so, we strongly felt that God wanted us at Calvary.
Calvary was home, Calvary was family, Calvary was so obviously where God wanted us.
We were (usually, mostly, almost always) happy to drive that half an hour back up to Greensboro.
We’ve had the occasional twinge of, “Gee, it’d be nice to be that close” and “Maybe we DO belong there” but it’s been easy to
dismiss that as wishful thinking due to the moment (half an hour sure seems like more at 5am and IS a whole lot more at 5pm !!!)
That’s an awful lot of time and gas, and committment just for three services a week; let alone activities for the kids (which is why
we’d have to be there at 5am on rare occasion, by the way - stuff for teenagers departing that early).
But to change churches? Nope. Calvary was home, with no question.
I had wondered, though, about this little church in Level Cross - “How many teenagers do they have? Do they have enough for a Teen
Bible Quiz team?” You don’t have to be around me for terribly long to know that TBQ is my PASSION. I’m very gung-ho about quiz. The
AG Bible Quiz office has a program where one church can sponsor another to start a quiz team, but I thought it was kind of corny to
cold-call a church and say, “Look - this is what I can do for you.” — so I’d prayed for a way to meet up with some folks from the
church so I could find out if there was even interest in such things.
It’s funny how God works sometimes, isn’t it?
We weren’t going to go to church @ Calvary on Wednesday, September 6; company was flying in the next morning and there was SO much
to do (yanno - all that cleaning stuff and shopping and so forth when there’s a guest coming for a few days? Fun, fun!)… but two
things happened:
First, I ran into my next-door-neighbor in the crafts section at WalMart. Get that? IN THE CRAFTS SECTION. He was just wandering
around (He must’ve been led by God - the craft section ain’t Roger’s forte, if you know what I mean). He said in an extremely
excited tone, “I’ve been going to this cool new church around the corner from us. God is so GOOD!” and he went on for a few minutes
telling me about how Jesus is working in his life. I was astounded as we’ve been trying to get Roger even remotely interested in
church for as long as we’ve known him. Good guy - good Christian guy, in fact - just living apart from the brethren.
::nudge::
I say, “You don’t mean Level Cross AoG, do you?” (there’s actually three churches closer, that qualify better as “around the corner
- but that NUDGE, that NUDGE) He said yes, and so I spilled the beans about Teen Bible Quiz. Now, Roger’s not been in church as long
as we’ve known him - but he apparently has been going for a while and LOVES it. Says the church folks are normal folks like us (WOAH
- this must be a rather unique church! You’d have to meet Roger, and us, to see what qualifies as “normal” in his mind <grins> ) … and the youth pastor’s his best friend. A biker. Cool. I actually had met the guy once at a benefit, cool guy.
Roger says he’ll mention the Bible Quiz thing to the pastor. GREAT! I was thrilled. Proof positive, God answers prayer.
Second, I get home and start putting away the groceries and fretting about the time, all I have to do, the fact that we’re not (NOT!) going to cook dinner and mess up that kitchen with company coming. (NOT!) The phone rings & it’s Roger. He says, “Want to come to dinner @ my church tonight? I know you’ve got company coming tomorrow and probably don’t want to mess up your kitchen.”
…. um? YES.
Aside from not wanting to cook, we weren’t going to our church that night because of the hour round-trip drive. But Roger, yours is right here. We could be home by 8:15 rather than well after 9. And fed for free with no messed up kitchen in fellowship with the saints of God who happen to be our neighbors, Wooo-hooo, thank-you-very-much-for-asking! (and I can pester the pastor about Bible Quiz myself - does life get better?)
So we headed over; there were about 18 adults and 10 kids … the kids went off to do their thing and the adults had dinner together
and then we had the most interesting Bible Study I’ve ever had. Pastor Danny opened up with something not too controversial but -
well - thought provoking (OK, it was a little controversial. Just a little). Then he turned the floor over to us. We continued in that fashion for the whole lesson. He’d say stuff designed to make us think, and dig, and even debate a little. He never minded when people disagreed with him, or got off topic (he’d let it go for a minute, then gently steer it back into sharp focus). He’s really an excellent leader. I talked to him afterward and he’s the sort of pastor who welcomes questions and
understands he “doesn’t know everything” about the Bible - tho he’s obviously spent a LOT of time studying it and was very comfortable teaching the lesson. (I found out later that he’s got his M.M.)
I told them about my background and the ministry - it was kind of contextual to a point I needed to make when talking about the
lesson, so I just outed myself - and no one even crossed an eyelash. Pastor raised his eyebrows and put them back down with a
contented smile. In talking to people afterwards, I discovered that there’s people in that church delivered out of all sorts of things (ex-addicts, etc.), so an ex-witch fits in quite nicely. They *know* God’s power there.
And they’re very interested in Quiz.
We got to talking to the youth pastor, Donny, after the service. Didn’t get home til 10:30 <groans> Of course that utterly and completely defeated our purpose but maybe not God’s? We couldn’t help but hang out. We’d felt God’s presence as soon as we walked into the room. Ken and I never feel “at home” with people we don’t know (but perhaps I should never say never, eh?) We felt right at home with these folks and were able to just stroll in and sit down and feel like part of the family like we’d always been there. I remember thinking, “How ODD.” It was almost like the “click” when a puzzle piece slides into place.
Something else happened that night that was really unique: Bobby’s been praying to become the drummer in a band, FOREVER it seems like. He’s pestered everyone he knows. He wanted to be the drummer for the
youth band at Calvary but that didn’t work out. He’s also tried to hook up with some of the kids there who have garage bands;
that hasn’t worked either. There’s always been transportation problems or someone else got the position first or the mom said “too much noise” (once, it was this mom! oooops) or something’s just not worked out.
Well - it turns out that LCAG didn’t have a youth drummer. He tried out for Donny, and was hired on the
spot if he wanted the position. (if? IF?) He practically bounced off the ceiling when he came to tell me that someone WANTED him. (WOW. What does that mean in a kid’s life? Especially Bobby’s?)
Donny immediately hit it off with Ken, and the two of them started plotting and planning “stuff to do with youth” - it’s unusual for
Ken to react like that to a new situation, but he says he felt very led by the Holy Spirit to do so, whether we came to church
there, or not. Pastor Danny and I talked about quiz in the same regard. “Whether we came to church there or not.”
We were both feeling the pull so strongly that we were - to borrow an apt word from friends across the Pond - gobsmacked. Ambushed by God. We’d walked into the church for a meal, yes. Fellowship, yes. Good teaching, no doubt. Had intended to walk right back out having made some friends and having, perhaps, limited ongoing contact if my ambition with setting up something with Quiz was successful.
God made it clear that He had *purpose* for us to go to LCAG that night.
