church

I know you are all dying to see pictures from our weekend in Wichita Falls, and I hope to get some up soon. But lest you get too upset, there are no pictures of Curtis and I at the formal part of the reunion. I know! I'm a failure at picture taking! But someone else did take our picture, so maybe you'll see that.... someday!

Anyway, while we were in Wichita Falls, Curtis and I decided to attend our former church, Faith. Curtis grew up going to FBC (Faith Baptist Church) and it's were we met. Even though my family was reformed, there were no reformed works there at the time, but we loved the pastor at FBC, and became members. Curtis and I were married in that church (despite the yucky carpet) and we had Curtis' mom's funeral in that church. Lots of memories.

So, Sunday dawned and we made our way to FBC. The leadership there had under gone several changes, which is why when Curtis and I lived in Wichita Falls, we went to another church. We were greatly aware that God was growing our faith as a couple to become more reformed, and it seemed that FBC was becoming less reformed (though as a church they never claimed to be reformed in the first place). So Sunday morning, we drop our kids of in the nursery, and make our way into the worship service. We ran into a few old friends, but were expecting to see most of our friends after church when we could appropriately show our children off.

The order of worship was very different than I remembered and greatly different from our current church, WPC. Curtis and I found ourselves looking at each other, both knowing that we were missing our church. It was so strange, because FBC had been our church. But it clearly wasn't any more.

One of the strangest parts of the day was at the end, when we were supposed to be showing our kids off. Church ended at 12:05 (ish) and everyone was cleared out of the building by 12:25. Even the pastor!! At our church, people stay there forever to fellowship.

Here are a few other things that I missed about our church.

• The fellowship of like minded believers.
• Seeing Curtis help during the worship service.
• Our familiar nursery workers.
• The confession of sin.
• Prayer. Now, don't get me wrong, we did pray at FBC, but not nearly as much as at WPC. As a result, I didn't feel led to the throne of God.
• Weekly communion.
• Offering as part of worship. At FBC we did it at the end, and everyone seemed to be chatting through the whole thing.
• The Doxology.
• The preaching of the word from men I love, trust and respect.
• Friends who are like family.
• Singing of hymns, or other spiritually deep songs.
• A choir who leads worship, rather than preforms.

So, all this to say that it was good to be with family, worshiping at FBC. But I am so thankful for where the church God has placed us in now!