Eight months. Nine
churches.
I have been searching for a church home since December,
and have only been adamantly praying since May.
That’s when the restlessness set in, the ache of starvation and impatience.
Nine churches, each with their own styles of worship and
preaching. Overwhelmed and
overstimulated, I’ve been floating along, waiting for God to point me in the
right direction. His direction. Any direction. I’ve been searching aimlessly, aching for that
feeling of home I once felt.
What am I looking for, God? A friend loaned me a book by
Mark Dever, titled Nine Points of a Healthy Church. The nine guidelines for a well-founded church are:
1. Expositional Preaching
2. Biblical Theology
3. The Gospel
4. A Biblical Understanding of Conversion
5. A Biblical Understanding of Evangelism
6. A Biblical Understanding of Church Membership
7. Biblical Church Discipline
8. Concern for Discipleship and Growth
9. Biblical Church Leadership
These are good, solid guidelines. They helps give me an idea for what my eyes should be
searching. But, God, where will I find my home?
All it takes is one.
One church to call home. One
church to find family.
I noticed this poster in a McAlister's I ate at recently. I laughed–having 'one' on my mind. I stay faithful and trust God to provide.
He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:32).
Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his ispan of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, jeven Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these (Matthew 6:26-29).
