A Place of my Own

       I don’t like feeling adrift. Since my church went through the disaffiliation process in 2023, I have found myself moving farther and farther away from a church I called home since 1995. I know leaving the United Methodist Church was the absolute right thing for me to do because the belief system adopted by the liberal church was far from what I believed. When the UMC decided to remove funding from Israel in the last jurisdiction conference, everything I had thought about that group was confirmed. I don’t understand how any Christian can turn his back on God’s Chosen People. He never did, regardless of how much they rebelled.
      But in the past year and a half, the church, which was unhoused by a judge, has engaged in discussion concerning reaffiliation.  This process has brought tension to my life. I left a volunteer position as an “Office Angel” because the stress of knowing too much about the unquiet left me cranky, unable to sleep, and feeling I was in the wrong place. But then the Lord gave me a reason to step away.
     It’s funny how accidents can change your life. I fell off my couch! I landed on my face and broke my glasses. I received a horrendous knot on my head, which thankfully did not turn out to be a concussion. What it did was make me have to answer that dreaded question all seniors are asked when they go to the doctor. “Have you fallen in the last ninety days?” For the first time, I had to say YES.
      Well, this was my first visit with my new PC. By the luck of the draw, I was assigned to Dr. Lee when my previous PC retired. Dr. Porter had been a good doctor to me for several years. My new PC is excellent too. He asked me, “Why did you fall?” What do you say? I told him what had happened, but that I didn’t have a clue why I had fallen. He replied, “Well, we better find out.”
     To make a long story shorter, I began a nearly two month process of getting my energy back to where it should be. Dr. Nair preformed an ablation on my heart in December. After two short weeks, I was feeling so much better.  I even have an implanted heart monitor to warn me if my heart gets out of sync.
     You know what happened next? Arkansas got its first snowfall of the year. I was iced in for two weeks because I couldn’t get my car out of my driveway. From early November to the first of February, I had a lot of time to thing and evaluate my life.
I had several long, serious conversations with my best friend, Martha. We talked about church a lot. After one discussion, she told me about a time when she was called to leave a church she loved. During her time of introspection, she sensed God saying to her, “Did you love that church more than you love me?” Those words resonated with me. Perhaps that is the reason I became so upset.
      I know I am Wesleyan to the core. I am working with a Task Force that wants to bring a Global Methodist Church to Jonesboro. We don’t know when that will be, but we believe that is what God is calling us to do. We don’t want anyone to join us that feels at home in any other church. If you are home, then you are where God wants you to be. We want all people to find their home in God’s house. One of our primary tenets of Our Statement of Belief will be to offer the unchurched a place in  home with God.                                                                                                                                                                                                                      I want to thank Miss McKelroy for her beautiful testimony on Ash Wednesday.  She stepped on my toes a bit.  When I considered what she said, I realized my sin of bitterness and anger that I have felt with the leaders of my church.  I don’t have to agree with their reasoning, but I do have to realize they were doing what they thought was best for the congregation.  I have to let that resentment go.  I ask their forgiveness for my tunnel vision.  I will find myself at church from time to time as we work to build our place.
     I continue to pray every night for the church where my membership still resides  I look forward to the happy day when my friends will have a new church building where they can continue to carry on the missions they do so well. I ask you to pray for our Task Force, asking God to help us establish this new place of worship. Everyone deserves a place to belong.