Finding Community - Rays Story
When my wife and I moved from Central Jersey to Lancaster PA we left all of our friends and family about 2 1/2 hours away. When we arrived we were hungry to meet people and get settle into our new lives.
The problem is that meeting people is hard. We moved so that I could take a job managing a printshop of just 4 people and Diane was taking some time off of work to get us settled in. So we had to make an effort to find groups we had something in common with. This left us with finding hobby groups and a church.
If you think meeting people is hard try finding a church you like ;)
Just the concept of shopping for a church weirded me out. I guess it's the Catholic in me but I always felt like If i can't connect with a church the problem is me (wow you're a really great church but I'm just not good enough for. I hope someday you find that perfect parishioner) . So after consulting with some friends on The Ooze I decided to go the huge local church of nearly 5,000 people. I figured If I couldn't find a community their I was doing something drastically wrong.
Well I couldn't and I Wasn't
A Year ago I would have gone off on a rant about how this church didn't care about people like me looking for a home. Now I know it just wasn't the right place. It was to big for me. It was to easy to get lost and it was to dependent on groups who were going on hiatus the week I moved in. This wasn't a bad church it just wasn't what we needed in our lives. We really did try (For about 6 weeks) Diane attended a new members ladies night and I signed up for doing sound/AV but, we were never able to connect. I am sure some people love this type of church it just wasn't us.
This is where providence begins. About a month after attending I get an email about my post on the Ooze from a guy named Ryan. Ryan had all these crazy ideas about Church and Community and how The Church should be part of the community and not just a place in the community. A lot of the same ideas I had. I met with him and really enjoyed our chat but I begged off for a couple of weeks. I had already committed to the other church. Two weeks later I gave up on the big church and went to see Ryan's place. The service was a typical protestant worship service with a band. In a typical sized church with a typical sized congregation (~500) It was what happened afterwards that blew me away. I was sitting alone (Diane was sick). After the service finished an older woman came over and invited me out to lunch with her family. She saw I was alone and new to the church and wanted me to be treated the way she would want her son to be treated if he was visiting a church. I was floored. I declined because I needed to speak to Ryan and get home to Diane but It really hit me.
Two years later Ryan and the Veritas team are some of our best friends and the lunch invitation marks a turning point in my life. It showed me that community is about people not a person working together to connect.
The problem is that meeting people is hard. We moved so that I could take a job managing a printshop of just 4 people and Diane was taking some time off of work to get us settled in. So we had to make an effort to find groups we had something in common with. This left us with finding hobby groups and a church.
If you think meeting people is hard try finding a church you like ;)
Just the concept of shopping for a church weirded me out. I guess it's the Catholic in me but I always felt like If i can't connect with a church the problem is me (wow you're a really great church but I'm just not good enough for. I hope someday you find that perfect parishioner) . So after consulting with some friends on The Ooze I decided to go the huge local church of nearly 5,000 people. I figured If I couldn't find a community their I was doing something drastically wrong.
Well I couldn't and I Wasn't
A Year ago I would have gone off on a rant about how this church didn't care about people like me looking for a home. Now I know it just wasn't the right place. It was to big for me. It was to easy to get lost and it was to dependent on groups who were going on hiatus the week I moved in. This wasn't a bad church it just wasn't what we needed in our lives. We really did try (For about 6 weeks) Diane attended a new members ladies night and I signed up for doing sound/AV but, we were never able to connect. I am sure some people love this type of church it just wasn't us.
This is where providence begins. About a month after attending I get an email about my post on the Ooze from a guy named Ryan. Ryan had all these crazy ideas about Church and Community and how The Church should be part of the community and not just a place in the community. A lot of the same ideas I had. I met with him and really enjoyed our chat but I begged off for a couple of weeks. I had already committed to the other church. Two weeks later I gave up on the big church and went to see Ryan's place. The service was a typical protestant worship service with a band. In a typical sized church with a typical sized congregation (~500) It was what happened afterwards that blew me away. I was sitting alone (Diane was sick). After the service finished an older woman came over and invited me out to lunch with her family. She saw I was alone and new to the church and wanted me to be treated the way she would want her son to be treated if he was visiting a church. I was floored. I declined because I needed to speak to Ryan and get home to Diane but It really hit me.
Two years later Ryan and the Veritas team are some of our best friends and the lunch invitation marks a turning point in my life. It showed me that community is about people not a person working together to connect.
posted by Ray at 7:19 PM
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