church hop

Today was probably our family's last time attending as members of the church that we've gone for 23 years. My emotions about this are not easy to articulate.

We're not leaving because of any hurt or any issues that we have with church leadership. I actually really like the pastor, who will be celebrating his first year there in a couple of weeks. However, we're doing a trial move for NJ and CD.

Both of the kids have had anxiety at the church since before our new pastor started, each for their own reason. Much of NJ's anxiety stems from the fact that he understands that he's different from most of the rest of the youth, and he had a meltdown a while back that he's embarrassed about. There's a church in town that has a program during Sunday morning service that is targeted to teens and young adults with special needs. NJ has been going to their special needs youth group meetings on Wednesdays, and has done well there. So, we're going to attend that church for a bit to see how well the kids do in that setting.

There are only a few reasons that I would be okay with switching churches. While I'm not always the best at being a friend to everyone in church, I do believe that we should strive for this to be like a family. Over the past few weeks as I've been letting people know that we're leaving I've been feeling like I'm abandoning folks.

I explained our situation to our pastor, and to his credit he has been extremely supportive of this move. I know that this has to be hard to see congregants go elsewhere, regardless of the reason. I wish I knew how to repay this kindness.

We'll be visiting family over Labor Day, and so the week after that we'll be doing something as a family that I haven't done in more than half of my lifetime and visit a church with the potential of making it our new church home. It's my hope that whether this is the right move becomes obvious shortly.