Six Weeks of Sundays

 If you follow my blog and Facebook posts, you probably know that I made a pretty major (for me) life change the beginning of November. I left the congregation I'd been attending for over 30 years, and employed with as a Children's Pastor for the past six years, and joined a house church network, The Table, as their Family Connections Pastor.

How is it going?

I'd be lying if I said I didn't get homesick for not only the people I belonged to and with for 3/4 of my life, but for the conventional church model in general. A whole wing of a building devoted to just kiddos, and room to store all their crayons, glue sticks, picture books and glitter. The sounds of lots and lots of voices belting out "Joy to the World" as one. A copy machine for all those worksheets and coloring pages, and a million other conveniences I took for granted. Even kids' Christmas programs. I never thought I'd say that...how soon I've forgotten the year everyone got strep days before, and a three-year-old Wiseman pretended to drink out of the pretend frankincense bottle like it was a jug of whiskey. Anyway, I miss that. All of that.

But, I'm learning that one can hold two emotions simultaneously in one heart. While my heart aches a little bit on Sunday mornings, my heart also feels very full. And there are some things I'm really loving about this new life. Not because the old was bad and the new is good but because both are good.

This weekend I really thought about how quickly I've grown to love this little group of people who have become my church family. Something about meeting in homes and with the amount of people that can fit inside a living room seems to help you cut to the chase. You kind of have to skip the surface stuff and dive right in to the beautiful mess that is each of our truth. And being in fairly close proximity makes it easy to say things to each other like, "Let's talk about this...I'll pick you up in five minutes and you can tell me everything on the way to get my groceries." Or, to have a children's ministry meeting at the local coffee shop and then meet up again twenty minutes later at one of our kids' birthday parties at the park because that's how we roll right now. 

And tonight? The kids acted out the story of Tolstoy's Shoemaker Martin. It was hilarious, it was heartwarming and it was so incredibly NOT stressful. We shared our hearts, some tears, some belly laughs, and the eucharist. Caleb drank all the leftover grape juice, as he does. I like these families a lot.

But I also kind of love this church on Sunday evening thing...for a number of reasons.

First, it allows me to really "Sabbath." I'm not one to deny the purpose and importance of meeting for corporate worship...Christianity was birthed in a culture that valued the community over individualism and it's meant to stay that way. But, experiencing that Sunday morning worship as a mom and a Children's Pastor is a very different reality than the experience of the average church attender. It is beautiful. It is rewarding. It is not restful. Having church later in the day has given me a chance to restore in a way that was not as easy before. 

The very first week I met my cousin in Scottsdale for the Egypt show at the Light and Sound theater and then had lunch. What a gift! Some weeks I've listened to worship music on Pandora while I did circuit training at the gym. Usually one or both of the boys go with my mom to Sunday morning church and Dan and I have a chance to reflect and plan out the week. Last Sunday Dan and I took Moses to the Dessert Aroyo Park next to Zaharis Elementary for a nature walk. This week Dan and I went to the Dessert Botanical Garden thanks to the library's Culture Pass program.

We had brunch at their restaurant, Gertrude's. I'd always said that the first thing we'd do when we weren't doing morning church was Sunday brunch. It was heavenly, if it's okay to say that.

Almost everything had a southwestern flare and was plated beautifully. I chose the tortilla and green chili pork "Hot Mess." I told Dan I ordered it in honor of Pastor David because he laughed, literally FOR DAYS when I said that King David was a "hot mess" in church. This gave Dan and I the chance to talk about what we miss about Journey of Grace, what we love about the Table, and how what we are feeling is ok. 

Afterwards I gave myself permission to just sit in my bed with my feet up and scroll my phone before warming up beans and rice, and packing up the "Jesus Birthday Cake" cupcakes, and heading five minutes away.

There's something else I like about the Sunday night thing. So many of us it seems have this pattern of getting "in a funk" on Sundays as we see the dreaded Monday quickly approaching. We are never sure that we squeezed enough life out of our weekend, and feel drained and ill-prepared for the week ahead. I know so many who suffer from grief and depression who say that Sunday evenings are their worst. So, it seems so fitting to end the weekend in worship and community, refocusing on what in life truly matters. I've already run into a few weeks where Sunday at 5 rolls around and I'm "not feeling it." But, some therapists have actually said that "doing the opposite" of what you are feeling in those negative cycles can be very effective in turning your mood around. I'm guilty of letting the unmet expectations of the weekend get me down and I am so thankful that I've made this commitment to walk into the new week with His praises on my lips. 

If you are in a home church like mine, maybe the holidays feel a little weird still. And that's ok and normal if you grew up in a conventional church. But simple is it's own kind of beautiful and take heart because your church IS "a real church." 

If you're in a very typically sized church. Maybe 100-200 people, as is most common, it can be so much more demanding than many recognize, so give yourself of chance to rest in the Lord and sit at his feet. Soak in the things he created, and enjoy the people he surrounded you with. 

And if you're in a mega church situation, praise God! I love the ways that those churches use their resources to help equip all of us, and fill some of the needs we cannot. I frequently listen to sermons from friends' and families' churches with multiple campuses, and have grown so much from their ministries. I am so thankful for the many shapes and sizes of congregations that are bringing light and hope into a world that desperately needs it.

And if you don't have one of your own...I'd be VERY happy to share mine with you. We meet at 5 and there's dinner.