A Good Place to Live

Finding a place where we belong can be truly challenging.

 

For the past few weeks my husband and I have been “church shopping.” Meaning, we’re visiting various churches in our area to find one right for us. One where the spirit of the community mirrors our own. This is the first time in my adult life that I’ve ever been on such a venture. Let me tell you, it’s got me thinking.

 

With each chapter of our lives there seems to come a new season. Here in Asheville, NC we are sort of experts at seasons. Just a few weeks ago I’m pretty sure we got a taste of all four within 7 days. No joke.

 

For a very long time I felt myself in a spiritual wilderness and I couldn’t understand why. I spent time with God. Whispering, listening, weeping and at times, even yelling. At the beginning of this month we made what for us was a huge life change.

 

We left our home church.

 

I had been at this church since I was saved. (Almost 9 years.) My husband had been there since we met and had equally fallen in love with the people and the spirit of God’s love which seemed to emanate from the place. But times and circumstance can change a place. They can even change people. Circumstances and people, often affect the spirit of any given place.

 

That’s what happened at this particular church. It became everything we never thought it would. Everything about American Church which causes people to turn from Christ and despise the Church at large. So we left, and it was the best decision we have ever made.

 

In the past weeks I have realized why it had to become unbearable for us to stay. God wanted us elsewhere. There is a whole different kind of ministry I never imagined outside those four walls. Ministry that really matters.

 

Please, don’t hear what I’m not saying. I believe in the Church. I LOVE the Bride of Christ. But the Church is not, and never will be contained within four walls. The Ekklesia (Greek for Church) is the people. It is the community of believers.

 

Sometimes God turns the luscious farmland around us to wilderness so that He can let us know it is time to move on to a new place. A good place to live which He has prepared and we must trust Him to lead us to.