Church Hunting

In the course of the last few weeks, I have discovered that the process of finding a church is much more difficult than I ever expected. Melissa and I originally got involved at CCC in an unusual way because we just started going there without really checking out any other churches. We already knew people from school who had made CCC their home so we started going because we knew people there. We quickly grew to love the church.

However, when we just recently moved to North Carolina, we encountered a situation completely unlike any previous situation we had encountered. We had no connections and we knew no one who had gone before us. Thus, we started "pounding the pavement" as they say. We were soon confronted with the prospect of few to no churches from the background that we grew up in because this area is predominantly Baptist. This fact didn't seem too daunting originally because we knew we could probably find a good non-denominational church. After a couple weeks of searching, however, we started noticing that the church culture here is entirely different from the church culture in the Midwest. Elements of church that we are used to, such as communion, are viewed in very different ways here.

Needless to say, the church hunt has become somewhat frustrating and difficult. We know that we can't be too picky, but at the same time we don't want to compromise doctrines that we feel are crucial. If we have learned or gained anything in this process, it seems to be a more concrete and practical idea of what we feel like the church should be. We have had to ask some important questions such as: How important is it that we attend a Restoration church? How important is it that we celebrate the Lord's Supper every week? In asking these questions, we have defined some core values that we will not back down on in finding a church, and I know that God will bless that and provide us with a growing, relevant community of believers who strive to live like Jesus. If only it wasn't such a frustrating process...