We’ve been attending a church across town for about two years. It’s a nice church. The full-band music ministry was a little jarring after about 10 years of attending the exclusively a capella churches of Christ, but I’ve grown to enjoy it. And the messages or sermons or whatever you’d like to call them are generally much more thought-provoking than fear-inducing. The kids love their Sunday school classes, and Rockford really likes the pastor.

But there’s still something missing, for me. Community. Friendship. Fellowship. I just haven’t found it there.

I’ve talked about this here before (here: all the way back in 2008!), my difficulty in finding connections. And I have met a few people since then, but I still don’t know that I’d qualify all that much of my progress as more than acquaintances. Maybe I don’t give out a “call me, let’s go do something!” vibe. Or maybe it’s that I don’t take that initiative and call people myself? I’m afraid of rejection, I guess.

Anyway. The church. It is nice, but I wanted to try to find something on our side of town. I was thinking that maybe if we were attending church with people who lived nearer to us, then we might run into them in the community and something like Oh Hello I See You Everywhere Let’s Be Pals would happen. So we tried a tiny church near us last weekend. It’s actually a church plant that just started meeting in a community center, and three or four of the people I’d call acquaintances attend it. Those people were kind and welcoming, but I don’t think we’re going to be going again. There isn’t a children’s ministry or really a spot to form a children’s ministry, and Rockford and the kids gave it a rather lukewarm “review” afterward.

However! They started a Bible study for women this week, and I went. My new goal is to keep going and force them to befriend me. (Sad! But true! Unless I chicken out.) (And maybe it’s already working! I was invited to A Thing after writing this, but I couldn’t gom)

But, oh hey! This wasn’t supposed to be about my sad sack of a social life. It was supposed to be about this: I’m going to a Women of Faith in a few weeks with my sister-in-law. The events are all about finding inspiration and laughter and hugging, I think. I hope to come away from the weekend inspired and with a new resolve to get out there and find my people.