church hunting = dating

"What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me." Job 3:25

This verse describes perfectly my feelings regarding church hunting. I knew more than 2 months ago as I was preparing to move that the dreaded church hunt would be part of the transitioning process. As the verse says above, it's the thing that I feared and dreaded. Ok, so fear may be a bit strong but dreaded is pretty accurate. Over the past couple weeks I've decided that looking for a church is like all the ups and downs of dating. You want to do it because it will lead to "the one" yet, if you're anything like me, a whole lot of analyzing goes into the process. It's a pretty big deal after all. (If you're wondering at this point if I'm referring to dating or church hunting the answer is yes.) You don't want to be rash when it comes to making a choice that affects your spiritual growth, social life, how you're going to minister and serve, and that affects the lens through which you've been viewing God and the Word. And what if your family isn't so keen on your choice? (Yep, still talking about both). Then there's the whole argument of how many times do you have to try this out before you say you've given it a good shot. Should I feel some emotional draw right away? If I don't is that an indicator that it's not "the one" or do I give it a few more tries? How many tries is adequate before you can say you put in a good effort and can officially and comfortably deem it not "the one"? God, can't I just know right away if this is it or not and skip the whole trial and error process? To be honest, I feel like this about church hunting right now 10x more than I do about dating. In the words of an old PT school classmate's little sister, "I don't want to get there, I just want to be there!"

If you're wondering where all these deep sentiments regarding the church search are coming from just attribute it to introvert overload. Still love being in St. Louis, am glad for the decision I made go to seminary and am thankful to God to get such a lovely opportunity in this phase of my life to be trained to minister well. However, my little introvert self has about reached the limit of meeting new people in jobs, school and in the process of church hunting, and it's getting a little tiresome. About 6 months ago I was starting to wonder if I was beginning to convert to extrovertism. This move has showed me otherwise. Ah well. C'est la vie. This too shall pass.