What is Great Church?

This is a copy of a post I submitted at a favourite message board. I decided to post it here as well! This was in response to someone wondering about trying a smaller church nearby, OR moving to the community their large church is in.

Chiming in a bit late here ... great church

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When we moved to our community, we went to quite a few churches and "committed" to one 30 minutes drive away. It was (and still is!) a great church; met all our needs. By our sixth week, God was convicting us big time as we drove home (very funny ... both dh and I were silent most of the way home thinking all the same thoughts).

Church is ALL about community. Great worship is wonderful; fun Sunday school programs are icing on the cake. But great church is being close enough that if one of your church friends is in labour you can pop over at 1:30 a.m. to watch their kids. Or when someone who is upset can drop in and you guys can drink tea together and pray. Great church is getting to know your unsaved neighbour and being close enough that your church friends can help you help them out and let them see Christ in action and feel what it's like to be enveloped the love of community, which is sadly lacking for many. Great church means not escaping on Sunday, but working out issues before they fester because you see these people all week, and have no choice but to resolve things (and truly, how many of us LIKE to resolve things?). Great church (for our family, anyway) is church where we are overly-involved , and from a stewardship perspective, driving long distances is not wise (now we have a tight budget so this may not apply for many people).

We knew FIRST visit that our little rural church was the one for us. We weren't comfortable with the worship style, there were not many children. But it was warm and welcoming, and God spoke to both of us withing three minutes of entering the building that this was it.

God has dealt with any areas of "concern" I might have had, either by using us with our gifts, or in His wisdom making changes, or by changing us. One thing that so far hasn't changed much is the number of children the age of my own, but I see now that when my children aren't part of a "herd", the adults are way more able to love on them and encourage them as individuals. I love these networks building in our community; I love that other people love our children. And numbers are slowly increasing as my children make friends and we include them.

Anyway, I'm so glad you decided to give the local church a chance. I'm praying that your dh is able to meet good, godly men and find real connection there.

Karen