Our search for a new church continues.
The original plan called for visits to 10 Mainline Protestant congregations relatively close to our new home. And, we did just that. I summarized those experiences in two earlier posts: First Five Visits and Five More Visits.
10 Became 13
Project planning in all areas of my personal and professional life is increasingly agile and benefits from rapid development thinking. This new search follows that sort of path. As a result the original 10 grew to 12 and then grew again to 13.
The new additions are noteworthy because they failed for one or more reason to qualify for the original list yet their overall mission and ministry were compelling enough to warrant consideration.
Variety
Now that we have visited all 13 at least once, I’ve updated the overall statistics on the variety we experienced:
- style: 6 service were blended and 7 were traditional
- sacrament: 8 services included Communion/Eucharist/Lord’s Supper
- length: services lasted between 55 minutes and 1 hour and 55 minutes
- denominational affiliation: Baptist (Cooperative Baptist Fellowship), Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), Episcopal, Presbyterian (PCUSA), United Church of Christ, United Methodist, Unitarian Universalist, and non-denominational
So What?
As of today, our list of 13 possibilities has been reduced to 3 finalists. We are looking forward to visiting those congregations, and participating in their mission and ministry as we continue our discernment process.
We welcome your words of wisdom, give thanks for your encouragement, and appreciate your prayers.