On being "Presbyterian"...

Most everyone knows it has taken me a long time to find a chuch here in the metro area. I have had such a hard time finding somewhere to replace my "home" at Fellowship North in North Little Rock. It took a long time for FN to feel like home--and I've had a really difficult time letting go of my need to find somewhere just like it here. There isn't anything just like it. Truth is, after being gone almost a year, probably the way I "remember" FN isn't truly anything like what it REALLY is, anyway. Absense makes the heart grow fonder and has a way of erasing the "bad" memories. After lots of hopping around, lot's of TV Sunday mornings, lots of no-church-at-all Sunday's, I have found a church that is nothing like FN--but I'm going to commit to becoming a regular worshipper there anyway.

I've been going to church there off and on all summer with my friend, Anne. She is a long-time member of 4th Presbyterian in Bethesda. 4th is an EPC church--evangelical pres.--so they don't have some of the "deal-breaker" issues like homosexual pastors; women elders; etc...that the other branches of Pres. churches have. However, let's face it...I was raised a combo of Assembly of God and Baptist...there are some things that are just plain freaky to me!! They baptize babies--they sprinkle, not dunk--there's the whole pre-destination issue. There are the things that are very "high church"--liturgical and stuffy...and some things that I just plain don't understand. Then there are some things I've been missing in a Bible church: big, beautiful choir in robes with REAL sopranos; a TRUE "call to worship" and benendiction before and after the service; congregational readings and praying the Lord's prayer together; hearing "announcements" and prayer requests; an opening prayer so long and complete that you have to fight to pay attention....these are good things. Things that I've missed by being in a Bible church so long.

It's good to know that God resides in both places--a place where you can wear shorts and a t-shirt or in a place where you would feel out of place in anything less than dress pants. God is in the hymns and in the worship choruses...the places where you can dance and raise your hands, and the places where you would be quite out of place moving at all...in the long prayers or the short....in the high and in the low....in the places where people stand in reverant amazement at His holiness and in the places where people dance and sing in awe of His grace. I am lucky to have both kinds of places--one at home, and now, another-also at home.