I grew up in a the Brooklyn Christian & Missionary Alliance church where I was actively involved for 40+ years. It was the church Gerard and I got married in and where we attended for three years after we were married. I had strong ties to it but I was growing very discontent and was no longer enjoying my worship experience there for a number of reasons. I am not one to quit easily so changing churches was a big decision for me. Gerard and I felt it was time to move on and together find a church that we both liked.
In Cleveland, there are so many churches around. In fact, there is a United Methodist church just one street away from us on the corner. I never went church hunting before but looked forward to it, thinking it may be fun. Our old church was small so I didn’t think I’d want to go to a church that had close to 1,000 people attending on a Sunday morning. In spite of Parma Heights Baptist Church being that large, we started our hunt with that one because it was about a 10-minute drive and we knew some others who left our church attended there, including my sister’s family.
After the first Sunday, Gerard and I walked in the park discussing our experience there. We came up with a long list of things we liked and nothing we didn’t like so our church hunt ended. We just kept going back week after week. I’m glad we gave it a try and didn’t skip going just because it was way bigger than what we were used to. I had a preconceived idea that it would be hard to connect with people and get to know people, but that just wasn’t the case at all. (Tomorrow I’ll post what we liked.)
I grew up in a the Brooklyn Christian & Missionary Alliance church where I was actively involved for 40+ years. It was the church Gerard and I got married in and where we attended for three years after we were married. I had strong ties to it but I was growing very discontent and was no longer enjoying my worship experience there for a number of reasons. I am not one to quit easily so changing churches was a big decision for me. Gerard and I felt it was time to move on and together find a church that we both liked. 
In Cleveland, there are so many churches around. In fact, there is a United Methodist church just one street away from us on the corner. I never went church hunting before but looked forward to it, thinking it may be fun. Our old church was small so I didn’t think I’d want to go to a church that had close to 1,000 people attending on a Sunday morning. In spite of Parma Heights Baptist Church being that large, we started our hunt with that one because it was about a 10-minute drive and we knew some others who left our church attended there, including my sister’s family. 
After the first Sunday, Gerard and I walked in the park discussing our experience there. We came up with a long list of things we liked and nothing we didn’t like so our church hunt ended. We just kept going back week after week. I’m glad we gave it a try and didn’t skip going just because it was way bigger than what we were used to. I had a preconceived idea that it would be hard to connect with people and get to know people, but that just wasn’t the case at all. (Tomorrow I’ll post what we liked.)
1 comments:
Changing churches is a huge decision. I actually changed denominations and that wasn't easy either. I think it takes courage to realize you are best able to find your way in another church.
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