Eenie, Meenie, Minie, Moe.

I'm learning that finding a new church is a delicate thing. Especially when there's nothing wrong with the church I left. I love Neighborhood's speaking pastors, I love our youth ministry, I love our worship leader and choir director, I love the people, I love that we reach out to youth in the surrounding areas, we reach out to and feed & clothe the homeless, we have a sweet preschool run by two amazing women...and did I mention I LOVE the people of Neighborhood church? They are not only my friends, but they are my family. I have grown up with them, grown tired of them, grown more aware of them, and grown from them. And now I have to find something else. I know there isn't a carbon copy of Neighborhood and it's members anywhere else in the world, let alone the Portland area. And I know it would be foolish of me to try and find such a thing. So I'm searching. Attending and loving Neighborhood has left me with some things to look for each week in the churches I visit. The three I've attended so far have all been different form each other, and I still have more churches on a growing list to check out.

The first week I attended Imago Dei. They worship in a high school in the SE side of Portland. The week I went they had a guest worship band, and a guest speaker, so I'll have to go to that one again and check it out. Walking through the campus before and after was intimidating. The halls were crowded and no face was familiar. But the message was really good, the music was personal and not very uptempo (which is fine, that's purely an observation). But it's hard to make a call on that one until I hear the actual senior pastor speak.

The next week I went to Pearl Church. Pearl is a liturgical church, which I thought was really cool. It was small, they meet at the top floor of a building in the Pearl District. The vibe was very...gentle. Does that make sense? I don't mean gentle in terms of their presentation of God's Word. I mean in terms of volume, asthetic. Never loud, never edgy, but beautiful. One thing I really appreciated about the service were the times of reflection. After someone read scripture prior to the message, there was some time of silence to think and pray through the scripture. There was also a time of personal prayer and confession before the Lord to make sure we were ready to hear His word and worship Him that morning. And then after the message there was a moment of silence to pray and reflect and what we had just heard. The worship team was small, and tucked off to the side. I couldn't even see them, unless I made a point to. I loved that. And as with the week before at Imago, all the pastors were on a retreat that week, so I will be going back. I'm also going to attend an informational meeting about the church, it's doctrine and it's ministries, soon.

This afternoon I attended Living Hope in Vancouver, WA. I have a few classes with the pastor's daughter, Katie. I love Katie. She is so sweet, and she cracks me up. Anyway, Living Hope is about 12 years old and they have grown to more than 5,000 members in that time. They have 5 services at their main campus each weekend, as well as 14 other satellite campuses around Washington, Hawaii, and internationally. The music was very well done, the building itself looked cool and everyone was very welcoming. John Bishop (Katie's dad) is a funny guy who clearly loves the Lord and loves to see people come to know Him. I'm interested to see what it's like attending one of the satellite campuses, as well as a youth group midweek meeting. As for regular Sunday morning worship, I'm not sure about this one yet.

In the coming weeks I will look into Lisa's church (I can't remember the name right now), Mosaic, Pearl Church again, Imago again, and a few others some of my classmates attend. Each week I walk into the church and remind myself that before anything else, I'm there to worship God. I think the Holy Spirit will ultimately show me which one I should continue to attend and where I can best use my gifts to serve Him. That's all I want, more than anything. And I look forward to coming home in the summer to worship alongside my Neighborhood family again.