Stadium Service

One of the hardest pieces of moving from our long time home in Evanston out to where we are now, was knowing we would have to leave our church. The church that J. grew up in, the church we were married in, our children were baptized in, and the church where J. said good-bye to both his parents. It was my first church home in college and the place where I saw my faith grow in significant ways. The people in that church are dear to us, and supported us in myriad ways as our family grew. I have heard of the stories that people share of having special needs children who were not welcomed in their churches, but that is not something we ever experienced. Our church opened their arms to our unique children and welcomed them and loved them. It was hard to say good-bye.

Thirteen months ago, we started attending a church we found here. It was very (VERY) different from our Evanston church, but we liked the preaching, the people we met were genuine, and the church's attitudes towards people with special needs made us hopeful that our children would find a place. It was also bigger than our Evanston church, with three different campuses, but all being one church together. We started attending the newly launched, smallest campus, and this was a good fit for us... the smaller regular congregation meant that we could get to know people, yet the larger church allowed for critical mass in weekly programs for children and youth. 

It takes a while to go from knowing practically everyone and feeling comfortable to knowing no one, but yesterday morning, I realized we have come a long way. Yesterday, we went to church at the Kane County Cougars baseball stadium, where our church was holding its first ever stadium service where people from all 7 different worship services at 3 different campuses could all worship together at the same time. 

It's not often that people get to worship with so many other believers, so we decided to invite some of our close friends, the P family and the W family. (You'll remember them from my children line up post.) These are good friends who will get up super early to make the hour+ drive to go to church with you. 

It feels good to have found another church home. It was great to realize that we knew people... certainly not everyone in that 3500 person crowd, but enough so that we felt a part. It was also great to introduce our old friends to our new church and vice versa. I have found the disconnect between my life in Evanston and my life here to be challenging, and having two important parts be connected, if even for a short time, felt good.