Southern Churches

I haven't been writing much. I think it's partly because things are so busy at work and partly because a lot of what is going on with me and Bob right now is internal and not actual external events.

Work is still crazy. Thankfully, my boss is hiring someone on Tuesday. Still, that person will not be up to speed right away. Time will have to be spent training that person and helping them learn the ropes. Who knows how long that will take. There are also some issues my boss has brought to my attention and I am now being watched quite closely, so I've got to be on my game all day every day. I am doing several different jobs in addition to the job I was hired to do and in the past trying to get it all done on time made me a little sloppy. No more. If I get behind, I get behind and things will be done right. However, this also means that now when people ask me if I can help them with their workload, I am having to say no which seems to be kind of taking them aback. Oh well. I have to do what I have to do. Thankfully, Bob is a great listener and a good sounding board so I can share with him what's going on at work.

Operation Move to Florida is still in the discussion stages but seems to be in the forefront of both our minds. We agreed that we will talk, think, plan, and pray about the best way to move ahead. We are looking at cities/areas we would like to live in, be they on the Gulf Coast, the East Coast, North Florida, or South Florida. I have a road map of the state of Florida on our wall with the possible communities highlighted. Then I am going to church websites for those areas and looking for churches that might fit what we are looking for. This is proving to be an interesting exercise. I started looking in the Pensacola area and while there are HUNDREDS of churches, the majority of them seem to be quite conservative in nature.

Bob and I are looking for a church that is more interested in serving its community than itself, more interested in people than buildings, and more interested in outreach than in programs. We also like churches that are different from the norm. Maybe they have services at night, or meet in a movie theater, or welcome street people to join church festivities. I am not finding a lot of churches that are different. They all seem to be cut from the same cloth. They all seem to be wound kind of tight. They all meet on Sunday morning before 11am with Sunday School prior to the service. They all have a Sunday evening service as well as a Wednesday night prayer meeting. They all have programs for teens, kids, singles, adults but no real outright community service. They all feature pictures of older or elderly pastors in suits and ties with a boatload of similarly suited and aged church leaders. I did find some that at least list local Pensacola area ministries that they partner with so that was helpful. I went through a listing of hundreds of churches and came away with 10 that might be possibilities for us. I am going to email the pastors at those 10 churches and tell them our story and ask them to pray for us.

So, that's what's going on with us. Today we are going to see the Timber Wolves play. We won tickets from our apartment management office. We're not big basketball fans and the Wolves have been kind of pathetic since they lost KG but it's time out together doing something different and fun.