It's hard enough finding a faith community that you feel you can belong to once, let alone doing it again in a brand new place. What could be more terrifying? For me, church shopping isn't as simple as Googling the nearest compatible denomination. A place has to have the right feel, you know? That intangible quality — acceptance of heretical ideas, safety to explore theologic questions, a sense of the Spirit moving through a place. It all has to be there, and for me it's more an important than seeing "ELCA" on the church website.
I was raised Lutheran, but I don't always feel Lutheran. I want to explore my relationship to the Divine in new ways; I want to be challenged. Also, for the first time, I don't just have my own needs to consider. My girlfriend and I want to find a community that honors and incorporates both of our faith traditions (Lutheran and Presbyterian), but also challenges us to rethink our beliefs.
The final problem is the age thing. When you look at most congregations, you see a lot of families with young children and a lot of retirees. It's hard to find a church with a sizable number of twentysomethings to make friends with and talk about the issues that we're dealing with. By and large, young people are absent from the church — except for in nondenominational, rah-rah Jesus churches, where I've never felt comfortable.
So, how do we find a place that welcomes us, feeds us and sends us out into the world to do God's work, but also incorporates the liturgy we grew up with, has people we can relate to and encourages us to explore our ever-changing beliefs? Does such a place exist? How do we find it?
Let the church shopping begin.
