When it's time for you to find a church home, God will make a way for you.
He'll put someone in your path, or some thought in your head. Something will happen on TV or someone will mention something in passing. Whatever it is, consider it a call.
God is saying, I've been preparing something for you and here it is. Come and see what I've put together just for you.
I had looked at well over a dozen churches locally before one day at lunch someone mentioned that he had attended a wedding at an Episcopal church and I thought, just briefly, oh, yeah, I've been wanting to try an Episcopal church.
So I did my research and found Hope.
Churches spend a lot of time and even money trying to figure out how to get people through the door on Sunday when they don't realize the most important thing they can do is leave the door open and let God lead the people through.
What led me to Hope was not a person, was not a praise band, was not its location. I didn't know anyone at Hope. I hadn't been to church in years. And yet I showed up on Easter Sunday more than three years ago now, because of one thing.
Hope has a Narnia library.
The Narnia books had been my favorite as a child. They had brought me hope and now God was using them to bring me to Hope. I was excited to see this library and the promised wardrobe.
But for weeks I couldn't find it.
For weeks, I came back to Hope anyway, and each week it was less and less about the library and more and more about the pastor, about the people, about the community, about the presence of God that I felt when I was there.
It was only when I met with Pastor Debbie for the first time that I asked her about the library and she showed it to me.
And there it was, right there off the narthex. I had been passing it by every Sunday, mistaking it, as many people do, for a coat closet.
Watch, pay attention to those doors that God leaves for you, the windows He leaves open, the doors left slightly ajar.
Because behind those doors, on the other side of those windows, are whole worlds we could never have imagined.
He'll put someone in your path, or some thought in your head. Something will happen on TV or someone will mention something in passing. Whatever it is, consider it a call.
God is saying, I've been preparing something for you and here it is. Come and see what I've put together just for you.
I had looked at well over a dozen churches locally before one day at lunch someone mentioned that he had attended a wedding at an Episcopal church and I thought, just briefly, oh, yeah, I've been wanting to try an Episcopal church.
So I did my research and found Hope.
Churches spend a lot of time and even money trying to figure out how to get people through the door on Sunday when they don't realize the most important thing they can do is leave the door open and let God lead the people through.
What led me to Hope was not a person, was not a praise band, was not its location. I didn't know anyone at Hope. I hadn't been to church in years. And yet I showed up on Easter Sunday more than three years ago now, because of one thing.
Hope has a Narnia library.
The Narnia books had been my favorite as a child. They had brought me hope and now God was using them to bring me to Hope. I was excited to see this library and the promised wardrobe.
But for weeks I couldn't find it.
For weeks, I came back to Hope anyway, and each week it was less and less about the library and more and more about the pastor, about the people, about the community, about the presence of God that I felt when I was there.
It was only when I met with Pastor Debbie for the first time that I asked her about the library and she showed it to me.
And there it was, right there off the narthex. I had been passing it by every Sunday, mistaking it, as many people do, for a coat closet.
Watch, pay attention to those doors that God leaves for you, the windows He leaves open, the doors left slightly ajar.
Because behind those doors, on the other side of those windows, are whole worlds we could never have imagined.
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