Churching it up

My freshman year of college (2004), I found a church I LOVED, Riverview. I quickly got involved with their college group, and started going to a house church with about 20 other college-aged people. We were all so different from each other, some of the people in the group I probably would have never talked to or been friends with if I wasn't in a small group with them (just being honest!), but despite all of our opposite personalities and weird quirks, we clicked and it just worked. One of the pastors and his wife (and their 5 wonderful kids), opened up their house to us each week. That group was more than just a weekly Bible study, those people who attended quickly became my home away from home - they were my family. We shared our joys, our pains, our struggles, our questions, our fears - we shared our lives with each other. We could rely on that house church to be there for us, we were so close. After that school year was over, the college group underwent some massive renovations, and our little house church broke apart. Since then, I have sought out new small groups without much success. I often think back to that house church and wish it was 2004 again so I could have that "home" back in my life.

Fast-forward to present-day. We've been really struggling with making it to church on Sundays. It seems that no matter what time the service starts, Dax is either just going down for a nap, or taking a nap. On the rare occasion that Dax is awake and we make it to church on time, we usually have to leave early because he's ready to take a nap. It's been really frustrating for Derek and I, because it's been negatively impacting our spiritual life.

Today, we all woke up and got ready to go to the 11:15 service, and surprise surprise, Dax went down for a nap at 11am. After talking for a few minutes, we decided that we should just do our own house church. We have a couple of friends that go with us so we called them up and asked if they wanted to come over and we would listen to a message online, talk about it, and pray. So, that's exactly what we did today, and it was really nice! We're really excited about this, and think it will be a great way to reach out to our friends, and a new way to stay accountable. We're going to work our way through some online messages, starting out with the "How to Kill a Church" series. Where we go from there is still to be determined, but what we do know is that God will definitely show us the way.