Decisions, Desicions

Who knew that finding a Sunday School class could be so difficult?  Well, I know that.  Anyone else with me on this one?

When Kris and I started dating, we went to a church that we really enjoyed.  However, we never found a class that we "fit" into.  We didn't want to go to a singles class because we didn't consider ourselves single. Also, we were older than the average single.  After our engagement, we tried a nearly/newly wed class.  That wasn't a good fit either.  I was well into my "career" and Kris was in law school with a couple of other degrees already under his belt.  Most of the other couples in the class were just beginning college.  We even attempted young couples classes before we were married, and I guess in those cases we were just being picky.  We are not a couple who like big groups, we prefer consistent teaching, we appreciate in depth learning, and it would be nice to have something in common with the people we are interacting with.  Yes, our faith is a common factor, but we'd also like a little more.

Then it happened.....we found a class!  It was the perfect fit for us.  Having twelve in attendance was a good Sunday.  Everyone was our age.  Couples either had young children or at least wanted them.  The teacher was there every Sunday.  The teacher was very intelligent and taught verse by verse.  The class even met at a time that allowed us to go to a traditional church service, complete with hymns!  (Side note:  Kris and I might have grown up in different "worlds", but we both grew up singing hymns.  We like the fact that one of us can start singing a hymn from our childhood and the other one be able to chime in.  This is something we want for Sadie....growing up singing the old songs of faith!)

I guess the class was too good to be true.  Our church eventually switched things up - adding class times.  Classes were split, combined, rearranged, time changes..... The teacher we enjoyed and had become friends with moved to a class meeting at 8:00.  We followed.  Unfortunately, not many other couples followed to the earlier time.  Another teacher joined the class to teach every other week.  It just wasn't working for us.  Once again, we didn't fit.  So here we go again.....

Now add Sadie.  What to do?  Another issue we'd had was finding a group of people who lived in our area.  We wanted to be able to meet friends who were close to us.  With such a large church, people were driving in from all over.  I want Sadie to have church friends, but I don't want to have to drive 30+ minutes to get to them for play dates.

We have sort of uprooted from the church we had enjoyed for several years and have been visiting a local church.  Trying new classes makes me uncomfortable.  The first Sunday we visited (several months ago), we told someone in the class that we were looking for a more local group of people.  The response?  Oh, nobody in this class lives around here.  aaaahhhhhh!!!  Thankfully, though, that proved to be wrong.  We have met one couple who actually live a few houses down from us!  But then, as our luck would have it, after visiting a few weeks, they announced that they were adding a new Sunday School hour....which meant that classes again would be split, combined, rearranged, etc.  My goodness!  What is it going to take for us to find a place?

So here we go again.  The search continues.  Where should we go?  What should we do?  Keep searching?  Visit a new class each week until we find a fit?  Do we just pick a class and settle with it whether we truly enjoy it or not?  I've been looking today at different class options.  Perhaps we should start our own class!  I want going to church to be enjoyable again....not that I don't enjoy worship, but it would be nice not to dread the hassle of finding a new class each week.  I wish there was a simple solution.  But I guess all we can do is continue the search.