Our Village

Just one year ago, Chris and I made the very difficult decision to leave our church.  It took many months to realize that we were both feeling the same, which is burnt-out and unhappy.  It took more months to actually depart; after all, this was the first church we had chosen together, and we had attended it as a couple who was dating, engaged, married, and starting a family.  We served as greeters and adult leaders for the youth group.  I attended the Moms group and taught in the 2-3 year old class every other month.  We had friends, we had been part of a wonderful small group, not to mention the wonderful teachers our children had come to know, and who (especially for the oldest) were really trying to make a place for them.  The biggest worry I had about leaving was about these people in particular.  Would they feel rejected?  Would they think they had done something to offend, or not done enough to reach out to us?  And to them, I want to say vehemently, it wasn't you.  It was us.  We began attending Rivertree nine years ago, when we lived very close.  Five years ago, when we bought our house, we only took into account what we could afford, and it ended up being a far haul from our church.  Once, during December, we found ourselves in gridlocked holiday shopping traffic on our way to an evening service.  We sat at one intersection for so long, that eventually we realized that church had already been going for 30 minutes.  So we turned around and went home.  That was one factor.  Another was the dissolution of our small group.  It happened that the 3 married couples in the group each gave birth to a baby within a few months time, and that combined with differing schedules led to a wind-down in meetings, until eventually we no longer bothered.  And all those places where we helped and led and taught...we ended up doing more serving than sitting, to the point that when we finally had a conversation about church, we both wanted to just give up the whole practice.  The actual break happened when we got our foster child, a medically fragile premature newborn who fed every 3 hours and demanded what little free time we had.

So we stopped.  We left, without much fanfare, without even realizing it ourselves.  Until a Sunday rolled around when I told my husband I was going to the church down the road to see what it was like.  He hurriedly dressed the children so we could all go together, and we enjoyed it.  As a sister church to Rivertree, it has much in common with what we had become accustomed to.  Its large, with polished, streamlined children's classes, and the pastor is young and energetic and preaches great sermons.  The music is performed by a band, and they played songs we knew by heart.  It was nice, and we ended up returning several more times.  But we weren't hooked.  And so we continued to see other churches, to check out other options.  That led us to Love Canton.  We knew the pastor from his time at Rivertree; this church in fact, was a plant to meet the needs of people too far to get to the Tree.  After the first service, Chris and I looked at each other and knew we were both thinking the same thing: this is where we wanted to be.  Chris said it was the thing we needed without knowing we were missing it.  It took some time to get used to the differences; after all, this church was new and small, and it seemed that very few people were in our same situation of having young children.  The classes for them were small and less structured, although led by adults who were just as enthusiastic.  The music was led by two or three people playing instruments or singing, but were powerful nonetheless.  And, strangest of all, it only met every other week, so the first month or so proved a challenge just to remember which week it was on, and what to do with the week we were off.  Not much later, when I had found myself helping out in the children's class, more to help my son adjust to the new teacher and style, I met two children with the most distinct names: a brother and sister named Nico and Francesca.  The next evening, I was sitting in a foster parent class when a woman entered who looked familiar.  Later she approached me and asked if I was from Love Canton, which I guess I was now.  She then took on a fervent enthusiasm as we discussed my children, and I realized that she was the mother of Nico and Francesca, as well as another girl named Sofia.  She wrote down her name and number and explained that she and her husband wanted to start a Village (the Love Canton equivalent of a small group) for families and would we like to come over for dinner sometime?  I am actually a little shy with new people, and my husband was coming home from work at 9pm every night, so I took her information with little intention of following up.  Then I saw her again a few later at Starbucks.  Oh, the kids have been sick, its not a good time for us to go places in the evening...I felt so uncomfortable that we hadn't done anything about her invitation.  I don't even know if I told Chris about it.  Suddenly, it was March, and she cornered us after church to tell us that the Family Village was starting, that we should come to their house on the next off Sunday, and I was at a point where I was beginning to be interested in getting a little more involved (at least to meet some people at this church we'd been attending for months) and so I agreed.  Chris was wary of trying to go somewhere with our unique crew, and its true, we have not had an easy time going places with a special needs son, a strong-willed son, and a baby just getting mobile.  I laid down the law and got him to come "just once"...and that was all it took.  We walked into a house that immediately set us at ease, from the children's artwork on the walls to the hardwood floors and furniture that had clearly been jumped on before.  Our kids couldn't do too much damage here, as it had been not so much child-proofed but made child-accessible.  There was a moment of intimidation that the pastor and his wife were there with their children, but otherwise, we looked around and saw families like ours, with active children weaving in between moms trying to balance coffee mugs and dads calling out to "Stop fighting with sticks!"  We had found our people.  We had joined a Village.

Here is what we have gained in the ensuing 6 months of actively participating in Family Village:
1.  Even in our involved days at our previous church, we tended to feel isolated, like Lipford island.  We didn't seem to have the same concerns as other families, the same priorities of other parents, the same struggles as other people.  But now we have a group of people who are facing our same challenges, or (even better) have solutions to help our family interact better.  We have parents to talk with who want the same things for their children, come from the same perspective about marriage and family, and actually encourage us as we go.

2.  Each time our Village meets, our leaders (yes, the crazy lady from foster parent class and her equally crazy husband) give us challenges to make us pay attention to our kids or our spouse, to sacrifice or try harder, and then they check in.  They really want us to be better and be empowered as we go through this sometimes difficult phase of child-rearing.  They share their own struggles and successes with us, and they come up with creative ways of making time for everyone.

3.  Our leaders are extremely frugal, so nothing they initiate or recommend is prohibitively expensive, yet they are so generous with their time.  Sometimes I feel like they have discovered some secret to time management, when they describe a typical day and my head is spinning with all they have accomplished.  Meanwhile, we managed to get everyone dressed!  And in Winston's case, dressed again after he undressed himself and ran around the house naked.

4.  We get fed.  Literally and spiritually.  I love having a venue to bake for again, although some weeks my contribution to our brunch is some bananas or graham crackers.  But more than that, Chris and I always leave Village full of hope and encouragement, with new things to talk about with each other, new thoughts forming in our heads, new ideas about something we can teach the kids or a way we can serve each other.