my church

We have friends visiting our church this Sunday. The husband has been friends with Zach since we moved to Conyers. They have two children and his wife (who I love but never see) asked me to give her my opinion, criticisms and all, of our church as a young woman, mother, wife, and child of God. TALL ORDER! I have never been asked that so I just started typing and this is what came out. I am sharing this on here because my church is a part of me and a part of my family and that's what I want blog to share. Who we are. The fun stuff, funny stuff, sad stuff and true stuff...

CCC is the only church I have ever loved. I grew up in the same church from 6 weeks old until I got married and I loved many people there but never felt completely at home. For me CCC is home. However we are not perfect. CCC is still a fairly new church. We've only been around for 8 years and only had a building for 4 months. Therefore a lot of things are still a work in progress. We do not have a janitorial staff, we do not have decorated classrooms (yet), we do not have a lot of state of the art stuff most churches do.

There are discipleship groups before church for children 1st grade and up. From what I know they do a lot of learning and memorizing scripture. It's more than our typical bible story stuff. During the service there is children's church for 3-K. We do bible stories, art, snack. These groups are small because our church is still small, but we pray that they effect the members now and we'll continue to grow as our church grows.

Our pastor does not want to be the facilitator/micro manager of the different ministries in the church so he waits/prays until someone in the congregation feels a call about something they wish to get involved in and/or start in the church. For example I am now the social events coordinator because I felt that we needed ways to get together outside of church and events to invite others to who might not be open to going to church. This is all to say that if you are worried that a certain group or activity does not exist that doesn't mean it won't in the future. Honestly some people at our church have left for this very reason. They feel that there's not enough available or feel that they shouldn't have to be the one's to create things or are afraid to step into that leadership role and get burned out. I don't know if that's right or wrong or irrelevant but it's been a struggle for Zach and I to understand. We both came from small church backgrounds that required more member team work and I guess that's just not the same everywhere. Again, though, I can't judge anyone else's reasoning. There are thousands of churches for a reason!

There are times I get discouraged with how slow things seem to be developing. There are times I get frustrated at others for not stepping up. There are times Dave (our pastor) makes me angry because he DOES NOT mince words, but I have learned more about God, His will, myself, and my place in this world in these past 5 years than ever before. This is not all due to CCC but a lot of it relates. I have been introduced and understand Grace more than ever. I have closer friends who I can have deep conversations with. I feel more encouraged and more loved and more accepted than I ever have. I have a group of women at a bible study on Wednesday nights who will let me share anything good, bad or ugly and smother me we love and acceptance. I have many people who look at and love my children and will do almost anything for them. (This is HUGE to me since none of our family is here.) ...

I thank God for this church family daily. I don't know how long we will live in Conyers or where CCC will go/grow in the future, but I am beyond blessed to be there now.