From this point on, I plan to post a "Church Shopping Chronicle" every Monday, and will continue to do so, until we have been settled in a church, or unless I have nothing to chronicle. If we ever become unsettled from that church, then the Chronicles will continue again. I'm only posting once a week, now, because we are up to this year in my Chronicles, and I don't want any church singled out, should any locals be reading this series. Therefore, by posting once a week, I will now focus on one church at a time, of churches we've visited this year thus far. This will allow a time lapse, so that should any new friends made from congregants from some of those churches read here, they won't necessarily know for sure if I'm writing about their church, or another similar one we visited. This is intended to be a way for me to keep Chronicling, but hopefully not upset any new friends I'm making along the way. Does that make sense?
We moved to the bigger house on a good amount of land, and loved it! We were finally on well water, our own septic, and are in the woods, on lots of land. We have the options of chickens, horses, pigs, super huge gardens, putting in a pool - whatever we want. This house is also much closer to my husband's job, but unfortunately, even further from the little church we had been commuting to. The commute to the little church in the ghost town is just too much, now.
I went online to seek out churches close to our new house, and very quickly found an Independent Baptist church with a very detailed, and informative website. My husband and I liked what we saw, so we decided that we'd visit that church the following Sunday.
It was GREAT! They sang the beautiful, old hymns, the preaching was from the King James Bible, all the women there had long hair and wore dresses (my daughter and I were the only ones head covered, but we're used to that). We were informed by people who came up and welcomed us that all the married women are stay at home wives/mothers, and that almost every family at that church homeschools. We fit right in. Not to mention that the preaching was absolutely fabulous, and very meaty.
We excitedly decided we for sure were going to go back to the evening services, and we did, and it was awesome. After the evening services, the pastor asked us if he could come to our house later in the week to visit with us, and get to know us a bit. We said we'd love to have him over. We're not too unfamiliar with this, as we've learned that a lot of Independent Baptist churches have the pastor visiting new congregants or visitors. I like that, because it also gives us the opportunity of getting to know the pastor better.
A few days later, he called my husband for directions to the house, and he and one other person showed up at our door, and we invited them inside. After getting the neurotypical ritual of small talk out of the way, we got down to business. We told him we loved his church, and would like to continue attending. We then said that we wanted to be straight forward, and put everything out on the table, first, because we've had some past church hurts because of having some doctrinal differences. We listed our doctrinal differences.
There was a noticeable wince when he found out we're mid-trib for the rapture, and not pre-trib, but other than that, he seemed fine, and we went through the list. We also shared our salvation testimonies, and about some of the stuff the Lord has done, and is currently doing in our lives. It was a great time of fellowshipping, and I think we all enjoyed it.
The pastor told us that he was fine with our doctrinal differences, except for one thing, and this one thing was a deal breaker. You see, we told him that we'd be perpetual visitors, that we don't become official "members" of local church bodies, because we already are members of Christ's church, with Christ being the head of the church. He said that was the problem, and because we would never "join" that local church, he didn't think we should visit anymore, and gave us his well-wishes in our finding a 'more compatible' church. He also said he thought some of the congregants may have problems with our doctrinal differences, and he didn't want any issues. I was bummed. I was hoping we could keep going to that church. I really liked it, we were already making friends there, even though we'd only gone there two times (Sunday morning, and Sunday evening).
He restated, shortly before leaving (very nicely, and apologetically) that his church is not for us, and we should not come back.
That was the third church I was kicked out of. However, the hurt isn't as bad in this case, since we only went twice, and didn't get a chance to become too attached. I suspect his church might have been a Briderist church, as the Briderists tend to put membership into the local Independent Baptist church second only to salvation.
This was officially the first church my husband was kicked out of. The other two churches just kicked me, personally, out; not the rest of the family.
I'll chronicle the next church we visited in the next installment, which should be up next Monday.
