SubscribeFinding a church home
Like my mother, I am in a sort of spiritual limbo. So is my daughter. We’re settling into our new hometown in North Carolina but we’re dealing with one of the toughest losses caused by relocation: leaving a church family. We’re searching now for a new church home and it’s no easy journey.
I joined the Baptist church we attended in the Washington area more than 16 years ago, claiming it after almost three years of visiting churches of different faiths. I grew up in the Methodist faith but wanted to explore other theologies. A neighbor introduced me to the church and it became a significant part of my life. It was also the place where my daughter was christened and baptized, where she participated in a girl’s character training program and with the Girl Scouts.
There’s no easy way to define how we pick our places of worship. It’s certainly a combination of things: the minister, the music, the people, the focus on the Bible, the ministries and the church mission. Both my daughter and I know that we can’t recreate our old experience but as we’re searching for our new church it’s challenging to forego making comparisons. We’re praying to keep an open heart.
A few weeks ago, we were invited to attend church with a college friend. It’s one of the largest in the city –I tend to lean toward smaller congregations – and has a very active ministry. On our way home, my daughter asked to return the next Sunday; she had really liked the separate service for the teenagers.
We’ve been back and will visit there for a while.
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I am a member of the Sandwich Generation, a Baby Boomer raising a teenage daughter and dealing with the needs of an aging mother. I am a veteran journalist, having worked for more than three decades as a reporter and editor. Mostly recently, I was an editor with the Metro section of The Washington Post.
