What we have discovered, Part II

The story below led Teresa and I to finally land at a big church down in Marietta called Johnson Ferry (JFBC). Good people, solid teaching and full of 'grown ups'. We attended there about a year and enjoyed it, was a perfect place at the perfect time. We started feeling the call last fall to find a church local to our neighborhood as JFBC was over 25 miles away.

We started looking, again, at churches in Cherokee county and became disappointed, wondering if it was US that was the challenge? Nothing we found seemed to say 'this is it' in any manner. Come Christmas time we were really frustrated. Now, there were two couples back at the 'old' church we attended that both Teresa and I respected, liked and thought highly of, both on staff at the time. One couple left the church when we did, moved away and have since found a great peace in their lives after much turmoil. The second couple stayed at the church and we could not believe they were still there, so disappointing.

I December 2008 I decided to contact the second couple mentioned above as I discovered they too left the church not long after we did. I sent an e-mail to reconnect and had a good conversation with him (Malcolm). It was just nice to catch up, catch up a little and find them, amazingly, in the same boat as we were. It was also interesting that he mentioned several other people (not from the old church) who were in the same boat as well.

That got me to thinking and with my brothers encouragement I sent a simple note to Malcolm saying "If you feel led to start a church we would like to be a part of it". Well, Malcolm called me the NEXT DAY and said they have been praying and seeking what to do about starting a new church and our note was perfectly (God) timed. We met, they shared the vision, mission and purpose of a church and we thought it was spot on!

So, Life Bible Church was 'born'. We met a few times as a group of people to get to know each other and last weekend had our first semi-official 'service'. This church was not created to 'entertain' people, to put on a show or designed to be 'seeker sensitive', meaning be entertaining to reach people. It is, as the name state, a Bible church. We will study, teach and share the Bible.

This week we actually signed a lease on some space in town and will start meeting in ONE SPOT for the next year at least. That is great, no school, theater, city hall, civic center. A real building!!

I pray that this is the start of something good, faithful and true to what a church is/should be.