I’m about to be vulnerable with you because I believe that vulnerability, when used at the appropriate times, is important.
Community (specifically, Christ-centered community) is one of my biggest passions.
It has also been one of my biggest struggles.
Now that I’ve seen breakthrough in this area of my life, I’m ready to share my heart.
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I have been a church attendee since I was born.
There really hasn’t been a season of my life in which I have not attended a church.
I don’t believe that one must attend a church in order to be a Christian, but I do believe that coming together with other Believers to pray, worship, learn, and fellowship is crucial to one’s spiritual development and walk with Christ.
Community matters.
While I accepted Jesus as my Savior, of my own accord, as a small child, my faith really became my own during junior high and high school.
In high school, specifically, I got plugged into a church in which I experienced Christ-centered community. I had people who would teach me, challenge me, pray with me, laugh with me, and cry with me.
Thanks to that community, I grew immensely, and my time at that church deeply shaped who I am as a Christian and as a person.
However, towards the end of high school, I felt my church community shifting. And as I graduated from high school, I felt that it was time for me to move on in order to grow in a new place.
That is where my struggle began.
I felt I needed to go elsewhere, but I didn’t know where to go, and I didn’t know how to go about finding a new place to belong. Thus, I remained at that church for quite some time, but my community had nearly disappeared and my growth had stopped.
When I finally decided to step out and actively seek a new church home, I floundered.
I attended this church and that church and this small group and that life group, and nothing seemed like a good fit.
While there were short seasons where I did attend a different service each week, I often really did make an effort to plug in at the churches I attended, and I often remained at a single church for quite some time, but I could not seem to find my place–a place to belong and be spiritually challenged and be prayed for and be loved.
I grew so weary.
Fortunately, I was attending a Christian University at the time, and in the absence of an authentic church community, I still had people to lean on and a place in which I could learn and grow.
God used my time at Evangel University to sustain me, but four years went by quickly, and my time to graduate came.
And, shortly thereafter, the people that had become my community moved far away.
The weariness began to take its toll.
I didn’t have a church community.
I had lost my college community.
My work community majorly remained within the confines of Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
Though I rarely let on how I felt, I often felt so alone.
The introverted side of me NEEDS lots of alone time. However, this was a new kind of alone for me. When I was in college, I chose when I wanted to be alone, but as soon as I wanted to be around people, they were there for me. (Dorm living, anyone?) Post-college, I didn’t choose when I wanted to be alone; I simply was alone.
Because I had Jesus, I still had joy; however, without true community around me, I was really hurting.
This was probably the point where I began to place my identity so wholeheartedly into my career (go read my previous blog post) because, although eighth graders cannot fill the role of a true friend and there are so many parts of my life I can’t share with them, they were/are a source of fun and laughter and encouragement.
I spent my days at school, my nights at school events, and I continued to flounder around between churches on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights.
I grew so tired of being “that person” who was hopping from church to church, but I just couldn’t seem to find a place that I felt was theologically sound, was spiritually challenging to me, was more passionate about going deeper with God than fitting in with the hype of modern society, and had people that I was comfortable connecting with on a deeper level.
After giving up on finding a new church home, I decided to return to the church I attended in high school and then to the church I attended in junior high, but it was like trying to fit a round peg into a square hole. The churches were still good and were meeting the needs of so many people, but I had grown and changed so much during college that I, personally, had unmet needs.
I began to wonder if I would ever find another place to connect.
At the beginning of my second year of teaching, I tried another church. I met some great people, and I felt like community was developing around me. I stayed there for almost a year.
But then June 4, 2018, happened.
A close friend was back in town for a wedding. We decided to meet up at a park to go for a walk, and I was excited to see her and catch up on life.
As she told me about all that was going on in her world, there was life in every word she spoke. However, when I spoke, I felt like I’d had the the wind knocked out of me.
That was the most uncomfortable walk of my life.
As I searched for the reason the walk was so uncomfortable and left me feeling so empty and lifeless, the discrepancy between us hit me like a ton of bricks.
Jesus’ presence in her life was so evident, and there was a fire inside of her.
I recognized that fire because I used to have it, but I had changed.
I did not have that fire within me.
I was like a pilot light: I had not burned out, but I had certainly grown dim.
I wasn’t being challenged by those around me, and I wasn’t doing a great job of challenging myself, so I had ceased to grow spiritually in a long, long time.
I had grown stagnant in my faith.
And without my faith, what is my life?
That night I penned the following words in my journal, as I felt I was hitting a spiritual rock bottom (not an I’m-losing-my-faith-in-Jesus rock bottom but an I’m-tired-of-feeling-lonely-and-lost rock bottom):
“I don’t remember the last time I felt so inadequate, ineffective, lost, lonely, and distant from God…I’ve been floundering around between churches and seeking someone to disciple me and seeking authentic community for so long now, and I’m struggling. I’m really struggling…[outside of my family] I really don’t know who to go to when I need prayer for something…I’m trying and trying to pour out, but there’s very little being poured back into me. Sometimes I feel like I’m going to dry up…Jesus, I really need you. I’m a broken person in need of your love, comfort, and peace. I need to get out of this stagnant place in my faith. I need to grow.”
The fact that I did not have a fire within me was what had made my time with my friend so uncomfortable, but after realizing what had become of me and my faith, I wanted my fire back.
I was more driven to find a place to grow and belong than ever before.
I needed to try one more church.
Now, here is where I love the way that God orders our steps:
Several months before our afternoon at the park, this same friend and I had planned to get together for tea one last time before she moved over 9,000 miles away.
We had a location set, but when things were miscommunicated, we ended up changing our meet-up location to a place on the other side of town.
I remember being so disappointed at first because I had been looking forward to going to our original location, but as I look back on that day, I’m so thankful we ended up at the second location because I really believe that God intended for me to be there that afternoon.
While my friend and I were talking, I noticed two guys sitting across the coffee shop, and one of them looked very familiar.
When I was in high school, I won an essay contest through my local electric co-op. The prize was a trip to Washington D.C. with 80+ teens from rural Missouri communities (and many more teens from rural communities across the U.S.), and the guy sitting across the coffee shop from me looked a lot like someone whom I had gone to Washington D.C. with six-and-a-half years earlier.
I looked at my friend and said, “I think I went to Washington D.C. with that guy in high school,” and she said, “Wow, that’s random.”
And then we returned to our conversation.
But a few minutes later, the guy’s friend left, and he approached us.
Once he was standing beside us, he said, “Hey, I think I went to Washington D.C. with you. It’s Jami, right?
I replied, “Yeah! Jared, right?”
Jared proceeded to talk to us for quite some time, and we were all having such a great conversation that the lady next to us commented on how encouraged she was by our conversation.
During the conversation, Jared invited me visit his church where he serves on the pastoral staff. I thanked him for his invitation but politely declined, as I was still attending a different church, and, after so much floundering, I was determined to stay in one place.
However, after my rock-bottom moment in which I realized that I had grown completely stagnant in my faith, I remembered Jared’s invitation.
I looked the church up online, and after deciding that I felt comfortable with their foundational theological views, I decided to attend a service at Abundant Life Church.
And I’ve continued to attend ever since.
God has used this church and these people to radically change my life and my spiritual journey.
I have been taught.
I have been challenged.
I have had life spoken into me.
I have been affirmed.
I have been prayed for by many (because, whoa, this is a prayer-filled church).
I have found spiritual mentors.
I have found friends.
I have found a place where I belong.
I have been invited and included.
I have been given opportunity after opportunity to get involved and use my gifts.
I have been loved.
I have been given so many hugs (because they know how much I love hugs).
And I have found my fire for Christ again.
In keeping with their name, everything they do is in abundance, and I am so thankful to be a part of this group of Believers who are actively seeking God and working to further the Kingdom.
I don’t know why it took me over six years to find a place to belong, but I believe that God knows. I also believe that He works things for good, and I am already beginning to see that good come to fruition.
I’m thankful for the abundant life I have in Christ.
I’m thankful for the abundant life I’ve found through this body of Believers.
I’m thankful that when I head out on the World Race, I will leave with anointing and have a place back home that is full of people who are praying for me.
Abundant Life Church family, thank you for being so good to me. I love you.
“I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (ESV, John 10:10)
