Our New Church

one of our prayer requests and concerns when we moved was finding a new church. i enjoy going to other churches and seeing what the Lord is doing in their congregation, but i dont' enjoy searching for a new church for our family. we have specific needs and desires and it is often hard to find a church that meets all of our criteria. first off, we wanted one that preached the Word of God. i know that seems like a given, but there are others out there that don't really follow that line of thinking. we also wanted a church that would have something that would accomodate joe and his special needs. we werent' sure what that would look like but we knew that we would know it when we saw it. we also wanted a friendly church. only knowing a few people in our new town we knew that we would want to make friends in the church that we were going to call home.

we visited a few churches when we first got moved. and we were discouraged. nothing seemed to be a good fit. too big, not friendly, weird teaching, or something else that disqualified an otherwise good church. just when we were weary of the church search, we were over at our friends house playing cards. their adult son came over after turkey hunting and we got to chatting about churches. he told us about a church he had visited and told us how friendly they were. we made a decision right then to visit it the next day.

we arrived at the Pursuit and were greeted warmly by the craig, the "official" greeter. he remembered our names when we left and has every sunday since. we found out where the children's classes were and found out that this was the first sunday they were having a class just for kids with special needs. 2 special ed teachers from surrounding districts lead it. joe felt immediately at home and waved goodbye to us. it has been an awesome answer to prayer. natalie or amy take joe to the worship time with the other kids in the big room. joe loves music so this is great for him. and then when he has had enough they go back to the room, where there are therapy toys for him to play with as well as a christian dvd playing for him to watch.

the worship is energetic--someitmes i feel like i'm in the middle of a youth camp! but it also slows down and is worshipful. the pastor is also friendly, and dives right into the Bible. we are going thru the book of Colossians, which happens to be one of my fav books.

its not too big, but is growing. and i can see why. plus they have coffee, juice, bagels, muffins, and donuts for everyone. joe especially loves that and signs "candy"(his sign for anything delish) when we walk in the doors.

we weren't able to go this morning cuz joe and i are still getting well, but i can't wait til next week. i am so thankful that the Lord has led us to the Pursuit.