A couple posts back I described the reasons for which my family last summer left Independent Bible Church and began looking elsewhere. In this post I'll finish that story on the unlikely chance that anyone is actually reading this story and wants to know how it ends.
For myself, I was not out to find the perfect church. There is no perfect church, and if I were ever to find one, I would certainly not fit in. The main criteria I had when selecting a church body to be part of were 1) that I would get along well with people without a lot of conflict, frustration and disagreement over the issues, and 2) that my family and myself would be in an environment consisting of sound teaching from the Bible. It didn't matter so much if the church was large or small.
However as I said before, IBC is not such a bad place. If it were I don't suppose we would have stayd there for over six years, nor would it have been a big deal for our family to leave. For what it is, it could have a whole lot more issues than it does. So automatically eliminated from my list of possibilities were all churches that I thought would not be an improvement from IBC. This eliminated from consideration pretty much any church where a driving force was keeping up with what's cool in modern evangelicalism. IBC does not (except insofar as a bit of this occurs as "baggage" within modern evangelicalism) embrace "liberal theology," where denominations wander from scriptural inerrancy and play fast and loose with God's Word, to keep up with popular trends in culture. So all churches that were more "liberal" than IBC were also out of the question. So that narrowed things waaaay down right away! Actually, with those factors plus the need for a church that baptizes babies, I could really only come up with two other options.
So, we spent some time in August and September at Faith Lutheran Church in Sequim. I actually liked a lot about it. The liturgical format of the worship service didn't bother me in the least. It seemed like a pretty healthy church overall where people got along well, though there were not a lot of younger folks in the church. It felt a lot like the churches I grew up in, and perhaps a little too much. I decided Lutheran theological distinctives, viewed as odd by some Christians, were something I could eventually learn to live with even if I didn't quite agree.
But after a few talks with people there, including one pastor, I hit a few bumps in the road. Lutherans seem very friendly to what has been called amillennial "radical two kingdoms" theology, where Christian culture and "secular culture" operate in two different spheres. No one really put it in those terms but I remember picking up that vibe from conversations and sermons. It's a little tough to pin down what I mean by that, but here are a few hints. Some Christians have the idea we need to go far out of our way to get along with heathens, and make concessions scripture does not require. "Live at peace" and "submit to the governing authorities" are blown out of their context in scripture. God, it is said, doesn't vanquish his enemies, and certainly not using his people; that was Old Testament. I reject this view as unbalanced and naive.
A bigger bump was the rather poor quality of sermons by the other pastor. They were so short (compared to what I was used to) that when the end came, I was surprised, and said to myself "that was a sermon?" the first few times until I got used to it. However a sermon on Deuteronomy 6:4-7 which managed to completely avoid the topic of Christian education was so bad that I had to conclude I cannot trust this person as a reliable expositor of scripture. I thought I could do better when it came to who was teaching my family, or I may as well remain at IBC.
So then it was on to Redeeming Grace Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Port Angeles. My wife was reluctant to continue with this church because it was hard to perceive an advantage from IBC at first, especially given the distance from home was just the same. We hit a few bumps in the road here as well, but in my view they are relatively minor bumps. (I might share these someday in a separate post--for now, since they are so much lesser concerns than the issues with IBC and the Lutheran Church, I won't worry about it.) We like the smaller church environment and the chance to get to know the pastor and the other people in the church without feeling lost. My wife has benefited from the teaching here, especially the Sunday School hour which is very instructive. My son really likes it although it took him some time to adjust. And we are still there now.
So there you have it. This has been quite a long road for our family--I, for one, have had an aversion to church membership in general since narrowly avoiding joining Mars Hill Church in Seattle (which would have been a bad idea given problems that developed there later), and IBC. My wife had some other issues of her own to go through as well. It has taken a long time to go through the membership process but we have finished the class with the pastor, and are hopefully very close to being received as members and having the children baptized. I think this will take place within the next month. I'll feel much better knowing that is done, and that I have made the best choice I can!
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