We’ve had an incredible week. This could very easily be my favorite week of the entire year.
The beach has quickly become my favorite destination.
Jeremy and I spent some time sitting on the back deck of our rented beach house this week, discussing how we came to love the beach so much.
We weren’t raised with beach vacations. In fact, neither of us even saw the ocean until our teens.
The idea of staying in one place for an entire week and sitting on a hot beach never sounded appealing.
When Alayna was little, her skin couldn’t handle extended amounts of sun exposure or sand. But, one year, we tried it anyway, and instead of sitting on the hot beach all day long, we went out late in the evenings.
I’ve written about all this before, so I won’t go into all the details again. I will just say that, as a family, this has become our favorite week of the year.
Jeremy and I spend most of the day on the beach, just the two of us. The kids stay in the house most of the day and come out later. We cook, play games, watch movies, sit on the deck, and watch the stars… it’s good.
We started our beach adventures renting a condo, and where we enjoyed the views from the high rise, we didn’t enjoy the long elevator waits and the rows of chairs. Last year we stayed in a house for the first time and realized that, minus the views, the house experience was so much better. We just walk out to the beach any time we want to and come back in when we are ready. It allows us freedom we didn’t have in the condo.
Same Gulf of Mexico, same sand, same water, different view…
It easily lends itself to the comparison of church and our experiences.
I would say that Tree Town was quite a lofty church experience. Stained glass, pretty building, large budgets… similar to a condo.
Think about it like this… a condo gives you a magnificent view of the ocean, but the ocean is far away. You can see and enjoy it, but it takes a while to get to it. You need to walk down the hall, wait on the elevator, walk over the walkway, walk out to the beach, rent a chair… The process is long, but the views are second to none.
A beach house, though, leaves you close to the water, closer to the elements. You can hear the noise, the people talking, the waves rolling in. And you can just walk right out.
At Tree Town, I feel like we had a nice view of the world, but it was harder to get to. People in the community viewed the church with disdain. It was high and mighty, had the money, and had a presence in the community, but not always a friendly presence. It was more like it stood out because of its size and location, but all of that made it harder to reach the people in the community. There was a certain stigma attached to the biggest church in town, and people who didn’t make the same kind of money or hold the same type of job… those people didn’t really feel welcome. And honestly, they weren’t the kind of people we were trying to reach at the time. The pastor was focused more on getting young professional families with kids. And that model worked when it came to church growth in numbers. But there was an entire section of the community that those goals missed, and probably the ones that needed to be reached the most.
Another one of my and Jeremy’s late-night back deck conversations included where we are now regarding church. The church we are part of now is so completely different from Tree Town. While I won’t go into what I think church should or should not be, or if I think one is better than the other, I do know that this one is just the different we needed.
It doesn’t feel lofty in a way that can’t reach the community. It doesn’t have old money and stained glass. In fact, it meets in an old car dealership and sits in one of the lower-income sections of town.
But I’m pretty sure a beautiful building wasn’t what being set apart meant in scripture, anyway.
I could go into how many Baptist churches have followed the Catholic example of building beautiful buildings or how many have tried to recreate the temple from the Bible…
But I’ll just leave it at this.
I like the beach house. I like being close to the sand, the people, and the water. And I like the same things in a church. I like being a part of a place where people in the community feel welcome. I like that the building isn’t churchy. I like that people don’t feel like they need to dress up and show off. I like that the budgets are smaller, the goals are different, and the whole thing doesn’t have a lofty feel.
To each his own. But as for me… I’m sticking with the beach house and never want to return to the high-rise condo.
Next week I will make my 100th post. It’s something I’ve been working on for a while now, and I’m ready to share it… see you next week.
Until Next Time,
Whitney