A friend whose blog I follow posted this entry last week, Blessed are the Un-Cool. She had many responses telling about their un-cool churches. Later she invited readers to tell about their churches in a short response or as much detail as they liked. I’ve decided to respond to this on my blog this week.
I grew up in an independent church in Indianapolis. Our leader, Pastor Felber, was a great Bible teacher, and I’m very thankful for the things I learned under his leadership. We had a great youth group, and we often had over 100 kids in attendance to many of our activities. I loved my church very much.
When I got married and moved to Dunlap, Phil and I joined Ewtonville Baptist Church. It was Southern Baptist, which was frowned upon by the crowd I had been around. We chose Ewtonville for a couple of reasons. We were used to big churches, and it was the biggest one in town. We also chose it because it was nearby. Even though I knew we could find a better church to attend if we went to Chattanooga, I knew that to serve in a church it needed to be where you live, work and play, so that you can build community.
It took me a long time to love Ewtonville as much as I loved my church in Indiana. I struggled with that for many years. But I remember a Sunday when we were giving testimonies, and I was able to stand up and tell my church family how I had finally come to love them better than my old church. It was a great day.
I’ve been a member for around 30 years now, and I’ve come to this conclusion. Even though I had better Bible teaching in the church I grew up in, Ewtonville is a better church because it is more balanced (even though that certainly hasn’t always been true), and because it shows great love.
More details later.
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