Church search is hard work!

Very frustrated right now. We have started our church home search in the Shreveport area in the last few weeks. Its been pretty tough. We went to visit our church home in Slidell two weeks ago and it was great b/c it gave us something to grasp onto as to what we are looking for in a new church home. I went to a church almost a month ago by myself ( justin was very sick!) and I loved it. it was the first church I had tried. usually that is how I roll. I want to live everywhere I travel and I want to go to every church I go to the first time. But no this time it was really that awesome. The following weekend the next time we were in Shreveport for the weekend I took justin and he felt the exact same way! he loved it too and i felt like my feelings were confirmed b/c i had had a really difficult week that week and it was what i needed. it left me on fire for God and I was feeling so affirmed that this was the church.

The first church we selected together First Baptist Slidell, we went to like four - five different churchs. it took about 8 weeks to decide which one we loved. I think it was more justin than myself. as soon as I went to FBC slidell I knew it was it. I wanted to be sure but i loved it. I could tell that it wasn't just a big church. but i did like church of the king in mandeville. Justin wanted to talk to the pastor of FBC after talking to the pastor I realized that it was the church.

I got knee deep in to the childrens' ministries and I found my niche. Fastforward to know.
We decided to do the same. We do not plan to move from shreveport. this is where we plan to put down solid permenant roots and we plan to be here for a long time. Im in no rush to commit to anything but hte more i think about i realize i may need to be! i need that accountability. I need the structure that church activities give me. I need the christian fellowship. my wednesday nights are so empty now w/ out those kids!!!!!!
i even applied this week to be a mentor for volunteers of america this week. i am very exicited about this!!!!!

since visiting this one church that shall remain nameless twice, last week we decided to go to a different church we were possibily interested in. Justin's aunt and her family and his uncle have been going to church here forever. justin's uncle grew up in this church but since the last five years the joiner clan has moved on to a new church. the church is very active in the community and even has its own school. its private. and i was VERY interested in it of course b/c i want things for my future family. we go and as soon as i walked in i knew it wasn't what i wanted. At first i thought i was not in the right frame of mind. justin had been to this church about 12 years ago and he commented on how different it was. i mentioned i wasn't feeling it before the service started and he was like yeah me either. but we both decided to have an open attitude.
the church started worship and the music was ok. the church that we were both really loving had the most amazing worship service i have ever seen. their system and equipment was very sophisticated and the band was really good. they didn't look like they were trying to hard or that it was over done w/ their organization thye looked like they were having fun and they had the best music. so of course you can see how difficult it would be to try to beat that!
the music selection was good but the band just didn't have that zing. they had a large band w/ a wide variety of age groups. but i noticed that they were singing the song over and over and over again. im southern baptist. this was a southern baptist church. that is a huge pet peeve of mine. i feel like when worship teams try to sing the song over and over and over again they are 1) trying to hard, 2) beating a dead horse 3) trying to be way too perfect. we are not going to do worship better than last week. you can't get it to that level everytime. maybe im wrong in that thinking but it annoys me to no end. i feel that that time w/ god becomes way too about the singing and the perfection. well they started singing over and over again. and before i knew it the baptist pastor got up on stage and commanded that the church sing over and over w/ more feeling. before i told justin he knew how i was going to feel about this. the msg was ok. it wasn't the most compelling msg i have ever had but it was good. i just dont think that was the church for us.
after this service last week justin told me that he had a young guy come up to him about a month ago at lunch and tell justin he say justin the day before and had a strong pull from god to tell justin to go to his church in bossier. justin never told me about this or i would have been at that church the very next weekend. im interested in trying out this church also of course.

so today we got invited to an orientation at the church we fell in love w/. i was kinda dissappointed.