Moving Away From Home

When Adam and I were newlyweds, we moved to an apartment off of Hulen Street in Fort Worth. Both of us grew up in the mid-cities and went to college in Arlington, so Fort Worth was mostly unmapped territory.  We had to select what grocery store to patronize regularly. We had to find the post office.  We had to learn the routes to and from home. We also had to find a church home.

Adam grew up in the Church of Christ, I grew up Southern Baptist and neither one of us identified with those traditions any longer. So when Adam came home from work and said there was a pretty building on Camp Bowie that was a Methodist church, we were willing to give it a try.

The pretty building we've been at each Sunday since 2002.

It only took one Sunday at Arlington Heights United Methodist Church for us to feel at home. The people were kind and had an authenticity that was refreshing.  There wasn't a Sunday person/weekday person trade off. You could talk to a person on Friday night and the same person would be there on Sunday morning; you could even continue your conversation.

It was January of 2002.

Twelve years later, we're still there.  I've been on staff for four years working as the Communications Coordinator. I love my job for many reasons. I love serving others and I love utilizing both my journalism skills learned in college and my faith. 

In January I enrolled in seminary at Brite Divinity School.  I'm taking one class and I love it. Discovering the culture of the seminary and of faith learning has been another time of excitement and recognition of home and belonging.

I would love to write Bible studies one day and create small group discussion guides that cover scripture and great spiritual writing. I have thought and prayed about this over time and one day I believe I will do it.  I'm at the very beginning of my seminary career, though, and I assumed that day would be far in the future; probably after graduation when I was serving a Methodist church as a deacon on staff.

The view from my desk. I love my tiny art gallery!

This idea ended up being similar to my "I'll enroll in seminary when the kids are grown" idea. (Notice I'm in seminary now and the kids are still in elementary school.) As a routine, I submitted my resume to the field education office with notes on dreams and goals of mine.  Within a week two churches started looking at it.  Within a month I was going on interviews. I was found by a church who wants to create their own Bible study curriculum and eventually publish a book.  After many meetings and discussions with church leaders and in my home, I decided to take the job.

Beginning May 11 I will be on staff at Central Christian Church in Weatherford. I'm ecstatic about the new horizon, about taking my creativity and skills to the next level, about moving forward to achieve a dream.  Writing Bible studies won't be the only part of my job, but it's the part I didn't even know I could get so early in seminary.

I feel like a teenager moving away from home to go to college. Our church is part of the culture of our family. I can lead you to any part of the building with my eyes closed. Both of our children were baptized there.  Once a month Adam ushers in the early service. We both help teach children's Sunday school classes as substitutes.  I know nearly every single person in the congregation.  We all consider friends from church part of our family.  The kids are so at home they are unafraid to approach adults and begin conversations with them. We are going to miss it.

The good news is that like a college student, we'll get to come back home.  The entire family will return to AHUMC once a month. That will make our time even sweeter because we won't take it for granted.

We are bravely stepping forward in faith and I can't wait to see what's next on the horizon.