Drew and I were invited to a church event last night. We received the invite on Facebook, and at first, I honestly didn’t even read through the invite, as I grow so tired of the many invites I receive from well intentioned friends. I saw it was on a Thursday night and immediately marked that I was not attending, since Thursday is my rehearsal night. Drew was intrigued by it and decided he wanted to go. I ended up finding someone to lead worship in my place this week, as I have a wedding shower for a dear friend this evening that I wanted to attend. With no rehearsal to lead, I decided I could go too.

We weren’t sure what to expect. I only knew it was some sort of gathering for young adults. It seemed like a worthwhile event, so I went in with as open a mind as I could muster. We saw friends there, and a couple that we invited showed up and sat at our table. We saw a young man that we had just met Sunday at another local Methodist church. I had led worship for a sweet friend who desperately needed a family vacation, and I had a chance to talk briefly with some of the people involved in her church. He walked up to Drew and I with a, “Hey guys! How are you doing?” like he’d known us our whole lives. I smiled as I searched my brain for how I knew this guy. It finally registered and we chatted for a few minutes.

I people watched before the program began. I often feel frumpy and uncool around other people my age. I see the trendy outfits and the cute scarves that the girls are wearing, and I glance down at my outfit, which is what was clean that day, as I haven’t gotten around to laundry that week and the few “cool” clothes I have are all dirty. I noticed the guys walking around, also trendy and oh so cool, and I once again thought about how I do not get the tight jean trend on guys. I looked around at the cool graphic on screen, the random abstract art scattered around the room and the lights artistically placed on stage. I realized that some days I feel I’m caught between a church that is so completely disengaged from society and anything relevant, and the church that is just trying too hard to be cool. Where’s the fine line?

We chose the table with one of our pastors. As the meeting began, we were given a handful of discussion questions. As the questions moved past surface value and got a bit deeper, Drew turned to me and said loud enough for our pastor to hear, “We should have picked a different table.” Our couple friends sitting next to us laughed in agreement and then said, “We go to Saint Paul’s…” (a different Methodist church in town). Then she added on, “You’re at the smart ass table.” Our pastor merely laughed and replied, “Good!”

We dove head first into questions such as, “What is your dream for the church?” “Has the church failed you?” “Do you think there is hope for the church?” My sometimes censor-less hubby immediately blurted out “Less bozos on committees” for the first question. I had to concur on that one. In my mind, I thought of dear friends who have been deeply hurt by the church because of not well thought out decisions from committees. When we reached the “Has the church failed you?” question, I tried to think of ways to diplomatically answer this one. I wanted to shout a very emphatic “YES!!!” as I thought back on some of the “ick” I’ve been working through as far as church goes. Drew answered that he didn’t think “fail” was quite the right word, and I offered “disappointed.” As far as my issues go, I have to remind myself that it goes both ways. Although I haven’t been totally pleased with the church in the past couple years, I know a lot of it is simply from the wall I have put up. Some of it is my fault. But that’s all for another post…

We continued to discuss and jotted down some key points that we brought up. It was encouraging to be open and honest with our pastor there and find that he agreed with most of the points we had. As discussion time wrapped up, we had a short talk by someone who encouraged us to fill the gap in our churches where there was no young adult ministries. It was pretty encouraging.

Drew brought up a point that he felt there was nothing in the church for young married couples with no children. We sort of fall off the radar. I often felt that as a single person too. For young singles, there’s nothing there. Any group that was formed simply felt like a meat market, a place to meet a potential date. After I got married, I breathed a sigh of relief, glad that I would no longer have to struggle with that and could now join those married Bible studies I had always heard about. But it wasn’t much better. It seems any type of married ministry is family oriented and geared toward the kids. That’s great, but for a newly married couple with no plans in the near future for children, it sort of leaves us stranded.

We didn’t leave with any answers, but it was encouraging to at least talk through some different issues with like minded people. And for someone who spends their days surrounded by people 75 and older, it was refreshing to be with young adults once more.