quality friday: searching

how long has it been since we moved to northern california? the days seem to be flying by, quickly adding up into weeks and months. life has been busy for both of us.

whereas i feel that i've adjusted to the constant travel of my job, i still often find myself exhausted by it. long hours, time changes, and what feels like constant mental stimulation monday through friday find me more-than-ready for relaxation and regrouping when i'm at home. still, the weekend arrives with its own set of responsibilities - cleaning and laundry to be done, errands to run - as well as my desire to spend as much time with mark as possible.

for mark, his weeks are filled with school during the day, and work many evenings. he often is up at 7am, and not home until 10:30 at night, and his weekends are much shorter than mine with a work shift both on friday and sunday nights. somehow, he fits studying, practicing, and a little relaxation into the mix.

so the weeks have passed - along with them, many a sunday morning - and i'm ashamed to say that until this week, we hadn't visited a single church or worshiped God amidst a community of believers since leaving chicago.

not that we hadn't thought about it. we've prayed many evenings for a church like the one we left - warm, inviting and compassionate, where God's word was preached with vigor and strength, and where the amazingly wonderful people shower you with love from the moment you set foot in the door. what we realized long ago, and were reminded of again last sunday, was that that having been so blessed with all these things back home was going to set the bar high here. but how much good does it do to ask for something when you don't follow up by actively looking?

the hardest part was even knowing where to begin searching for a church home. we began by searching for a local covenant church, but found that there really weren't any in the towns nearby, and knew that driving long distances to church would keep us from getting involved the way that we wanted to. so where turn to next?

one sunday a few weeks ago, we were enjoying lunch at a napa favorite and found ourselves chatting with two couples that had just come from church, and invited us to come for a visit. sadly, weeks later, neither of us could quite remember its exact name, but looking in that area seemed to make sense. being close to mark's work meant that he could easily get there after the service, and being only 20 minutes from home worked nicely too.

interestingly enough we did much of our research on-line, found a few options, and headed to one of them last sunday. it felt wonderful to be worshiping in church and to actually hear a sermon preached, and we're thankful that we've finally gotten through the awkward nervousness of not quite knowing where to go first.

although we're not sure that the church we visited is where we'll make our home, at least we've finally started searching.