Several months ago, Ryan and I made the difficult decision to leave a church we've attended for a large portion of our childhood and adult life. Both Ryan and I grew up going to Vacation Bible Schools, Kid's Camps, Wednesday night youth groups, and any number of other activities hosted there. We still love this church. We love the pastor and the people, but we felt we lacked community, which is important to us. It was an incredibly difficult decision to make, one I, especially, agonized over for a long time before finally making our decision to leave. It's taken some time and visiting a few different churches in the area, but we've finally found a place that we love.
After visiting other churches for a few weeks, we spoke with a good friend from our former church. He suggested before we visit any other churches or make any decisions moving forward that Ryan and I sit down and figure out our "non-negotiables"; those things we aren't willing to compromise in a church or its policies. We already had an idea of our non-negotiables, but this helped us discuss them out loud with each other.
Perhaps, we just needed a change of scenery, or a church where we aren't known to be able to spread our wings a little bit. Walking into the giant sanctuary, completely unknown by the people surrounding us provided an opportunity to begin anew, and to objectively observe what the heartbeat of this church looked like. Ryan and I have been going to this new church for about a month now, and we've already begun connecting with people who are approaching us with an intentionality that's refreshing.
All of this is out of my comfort zone. I like the familiar, especially, when it's somewhere I've gone for years, full of people I love and trust. After attending the new church for only two weeks, I took an even farther step out of my comfort zone and signed up for the Women's Bible Study they were starting. As a couple, Ryan and I wanted to find a group we could grow close to, but one of my goals was to find a group of women to grow close to at this new church.
If you knew me as a teenager or even in the last several years, you might know that one of my points of insecurity is meeting new people and trusting them enough to open up to them. It just doesn't come as natural to me as it does for others, or as it appears to come to others. When I pulled up to the church the first Tuesday evening of the bible study, nerves fluttered through my stomach and I started to doubt that I had made the right choice. There was one person sitting in the pews of the older church sanctuary that I knew. My good friend, Brittany, waved me over to sit next to her and her friend for the assembly portion of the evening.
The woman leading the overall bible study explained this portion of our Tuesday evenings would be lecture-based, where a different woman from the church would teach each week on the chapters of Hebrews we read that week. In that first session she went through a method of reading and studying the bible called inductive bible study, which seemed rather overwhelming at first. Afterward, everyone split up into smaller groups of women to discuss the passages and how they apply to our lives. As luck would have it, Brittany is in my small group, so that first meeting wasn't quite as hard to get through as I thought it would be, until I learned we would be giving a brief testimony to the group. Have I mentioned I'm not a public speaker, or a public personal sharerer? I got out of having to give mine in the first meeting, but had the privilege to listen to the other ladies seated around the table share how God has moved in their lives.
This week was our third meeting and I can honestly say that we are all making a real effort to get to know the women at the table. I'm also really enjoying the inductive bible study method. It's a bit more tedious than what I typically use, but it helps me dig deeper into God's word which also helps me apply it to my life. Our group has tried hard to use this method for a deep study of a book in the bible that is not easily understood or dissected. Each week I feel the input provided by the members of our group is not fluffy, bible study slogans or surface level reflections, but deeply considered and studied reflections on the word of God. I'm learning so much from this group of women, both from their experiences and from their discussion of biblical concepts.
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