Last time I went to the Anaheim Vineyard I got prayed over and might have been given a word about having a sense of abandonment. At the time things seemed to be going pretty well and that part of the word made me wonder whether the word was really for me. So, here I sit in the parking lot of the YMCA on Sunday morning at 8:30 waiting for someone to show up so that I can go inside to set up my gear for the morning worship. Okay, maybe I’m feeling a little abandoned. Well, at least there’s a nice breeze and I have a chance to listen to the songs that I’ve picked out for this morning while I write this entry and wait for a gate-keeper to show up.

I am getting really tired of feeling like I’m still a stranger in a strange land. I told the other worship leader two weeks ago that if my objective for switching to this church was to find a place where I could get involved in more than the “Sunday morning” experience and get plugged into a home study, then I’ve failed. Oops… someone’s just shown up… to be continued.

Okay, there is a level where I’m responsible for getting myself out the door of my apartment and meeting with my brothers and sisters on a regular basis. The fact that my church doesn’t really have that set up (at the moment) isn’t really an excuse. In fact it only points out that there are a dozen or so of my fellow church goers who are most likely in the same predicament. So what do we do? Well, I asked the pastor and his wife if they could put together a church directory so that we might have better communication with one another and all that. That part was done, ah, so there’s no excuse for only having Sunday only communications. But the reality is that even Ron and I, who have to work with each other every Sunday, tend to wait until Sunday to communicate or contact one another. Ack.

The other thing, which is an ongoing concern, is that it’s kind’a silly for me to think about where my real “church home” is without factoring in that I want to have you-know-who with me at my church. If the idea is to be part of a real living community, I don’t plan on having that without whats-her-face. And quite frankly, it’d be silly for her to consider going anywhere where there isn’t provisions for her two boys. I mean, there are active members of my small church who aren’t bringing their kids because there’s nothing for them there. Granted, all of this is really difficult for a body that averages less than 10 participants on any given Sunday. Then again, maybe we have the wrong idea expecting “full service” churches where every need is met beyond some sense of community, sunday worship and a sermon. Okay, I couldn’t finish that sentence without flipping the idea on it’s head and thinking that there is a problem with a “consumer-oriented” expectation, that things should community-oriented as far as it NOT being about Sunday morning “entertainment.” But this is still quite difficult to manage with such a small group. The last thing, that has to do with this “consumer-oriented” thing, is that if there’s a need what’s stopping me (or others) from filling that need? Ugh. On top of all of this, I just got a postcard last week from a church starting up just down the street from me, that is a plant from one of the big churches around the corner from where my church meets. Ack. JBB