This is a post that I’ve meant to write for a couple weeks, and one that I’ve been looking forward to sharing. In the three years since I graduated from U of M, I’ve moved to a new city five different times, and I lived for two weeks in a sixth. In some ways it’s always a little exciting to explore a new place, but the reality is exploring a new city is often long process. Until you get plugged into a community, it can be a pretty lonely process.
For most of my life up to this point, I’ve always found friends and community in the places where I spend most of my time – school, sports teams, dorms, etc. When you graduate and move to a new city, however, the closest equivalent to one of these is the place you work. But the rules are different now.
Suddenly, not everyone is the same age, into the same things, or even willing to spend time with you outside of work. Some people are married with kids and others are milking the bachelor/bachelorette lifestyle for as long as they can. Seemingly without fair warning, the structures we’ve relied on for finding friends and building relationships are removed from the equation, and it can mean a lot of nights at spent at home just passing the time in a poorly-air-conditioned apartment until you can justify going to sleep.
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I think many Christians would agree that our faith is filled with interesting yet mystifying dualities. It is true the Jesus is both a servant and a king. It’s true that creation is broken and yet capable of immense beauty. It’s also true that our faith is founded on both a deeply personal self-examination and repentance, but personal change also brings about communal change. Simply put, Christians need community.
After I graduated, I really struggled to plug into a church. I tried out a few churches in Holland, but it seemed that every church’s “20’s and 30’s” ministry was really just a 30’s ministry. At one church, I remember having a discussion about how I could have been one couple’s daughter’s algebra teacher. That’s probably awkward enough for any teacher. It was even more difficult for me to comprehend that a church could offer three separate worship times, yet there was no one within 10 years of me in age.
I should offer up a quick disclaimer: I love going to church with both older and younger people. I’ve sat with enough children and grandparents to know that they can both offer up their own words of wisdom. One of the (many) reasons I love UBC in Waco is that our Mi Casa (life group) spans multiple generations. I’m lucky to share meals and conversations with friends in all stages of life each week. Living in Houston, however, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to find a good church community that would challenge me and encourage me in just a few weeks.
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I definitely don’t mean to diminish church by saying it is simply a place to meet friends, but one of the purposes of the church is to bring together Christians to teach, support, and encourage each other. The tough part, as a 25 year old guy in a new city, is that so often you only get a few minutes to meet and converse with people each week. This happens all the time:
“Hi, I’m Andrew.”
“Oh, I’m Bob. Nice to meet you.”
We have a conversation, and Bob seems like a cool guy. But next week, Bob is out of town, and the week after that he’s sick. Three weeks later, we’ve both forgotten whatever it was we talked about the first time and the “friendship” starts over again. It’s almost equivalent to the “friend zone” in dating – it can be tough to move beyond Sunday morning coffee hour.
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Barely twelve hours after I moved to Houston, I went to FPC Houston – a church in the Museum District. I found out about FPC because one of my friends from Michigan, Kelsey, invited me to go. It is one of the best decisions I’ve made since coming to Houston. I have met so many great people at The Table – the young adult ministry. Beyond that, people have been excited and willing to invite me into their community beyond Sunday mornings. I play basketball with a bunch of guys on Sunday afternoons, go to a Bible study every other Monday, and I have people to call up and hang out with on the weekends. This has made all the difference in my internship experience.
I wish I could present some sort of guide for finding community in a new city… but I can’t. I just got lucky. But I can say that being a part of the church has not only improved my social life this summer, but my faith as well.
It’s still early in the summer, but I have no doubt that FPC is going to have a huge impact on how I grow this summer.