New Church

So Hubby and I have decided to stay at church #3 ( think its church #3??) for at least a year commitment. Obviously if God moves us along or something happens to the church we'll go from there, but for now at least a year.

There is some relief in picking something while at the same time for me there is still some doubt. Part of me says, STOP BEING SO DANG PICKY and the other part says, "Don't you just want to park it and call it good??" So I have to just move on and I think that's a good thing. In some ways I'm still a little unsure but each Sunday seeing Noah so excited about going just melts that fear. We did meet with the Pastor and his Wife to see a little more about the church and ask questions. They were open and honest and didn't feel any of our questions were out of line or too probing. I did draw the line at what type of TP they use! Just kidding ;)

So here we are at another church.
I kid you not when I say I feel like a church whore or something. Ok that is a bad word to use because I'm not using them or milking them for all they are worth or anything like a prostitute would do. That would be a church whore.
I wouldn't say I'm a church hopper either because we've always stayed a year or More (more then a year in most cases) and I think after a year you have a pretty good idea of how the church is. This last time around with church #2 it was something I was trying to 'hope' into happening for us as a family.

So we had our Pastor on our Facebooks from church #2 on our friend list. And I had emailed him to let him know hey this is what is going on because he had been texting Hubby about our whereabouts.
After a couple of days I thought it was funny I hadn't seen his FB posts in awhile and I thought, "I bet he deleted me."
Sure enough he did.
And I was not happy. I thought how immature and stupid is that. Then I thought about how stupid that sounded-- me whining about someone removing me from their "friend" list on FB. Oh the FB drama.
It was just like a breakup though I kid you not.

So before all the FB drama, I thought I would do the "right" thing and tell him via email that we were leaving the church . Because I was too chicken to have some sort of intervention with him about leaving his church. Just would have lead to me being a pain, saying something I shouldn't have and possibly ripping things up.
He emailed us back about my "I'm breaking up with your church" email with a professional sounding letter that said this: (You know you want to see what he said - don't deny it!)
"Thank you for your email, and sharing your thoughts. Your absence has not gone unnoticed and many people have asked me how you guys are doing. It has been a joy getting to know your family this year. We sincerely appreciate all of your participation and service to God’s Kingdom. We understand that starting a new congregation is not easy and that much of what is planned and strategized can be challenging. I am proud of everyone who has stepped out on faith and have dedicated themselves to His mission to make disciples in the Puyallup and Pierce County region.
May God bless you as you look for another church body, and I hope that you can find it enjoyable. May the words of this hymn express our support for decision: "
And yes there was Hymn included in it. Not one I'm familiar with but one about letting the lord bless you and keep you.
Now you all might be thinking, well isn't that a nice email? It was pleasant very neutral middle of the road type email. It was. I don't deny that. But what made me sad was I thought he was our friend. Instead if read like someone who didn't know us but was sending an automatically generated email or something. I didn't know what to expect, but I did expect it to be a little more personal I guess. The part about Puyallup and Pierce County just didn't sound all the personal to me and that hurt.
I emailed him back to this email asking for our dog bowls back he borrowed over the summer. Just like a break-up people. Just respond by asking for your stuff back.

But you know what? Seeing the email and then seeing that he deleted me off his FB page (which BTW has nearly 900 Friends on it. Whats 2 more right???!!!) just showed me that he isn't as mature as I thought he was and has a lot More growing to do when it comes to being a Senior Pastor. that probably sounds a little harsh, but to me that sort of action is similar to what Jr/Sr High kids do, not adults. I mean, I can't be his friend unless I go to his church? I wish he would tell me what really bothered him about us leaving. Because then I would have been more responsive and honest about why we left. He didn't ask and I didn't tell. I'm not being completely fair though because I told him in my email that details about us leaving were not important because nothing happened that was specific.
I think he wanted to know why.
There wasn't a why. And if I had given details it would have just hurt more then anything else and that isn't fair.

So there you go. I'm now one less Friend on FB (*snicker*) and I'm also out a friend period. I've kept my self in check. I've wanted to lash out and be really really horribly immature about this, but I'm being very careful. very careful. I've gotten in trouble about this before.
Ok...I did email him once about the FB thing. All I said was, "You deleted me from FB? Don'tcha think that's a Little harsh??" And I got no response.
So now I look like the silly one.
UGH.