Church & Community
I have moved between four churches in five years, always for a decent reason, and I am starting to wonder whether the problem is me.
“Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.”
This psalm was written for the sabbath, sung by people whose worship was tied to one place and one gathering across a lifetime. The image is agricultural: something planted, left in the ground long enough to put roots down, and only then flourishing. Nothing transplanted every season grows deep. The psalm does not shame anybody for moving, it simply names honestly what depth actually costs in time.
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;”
Paul is describing Christian maturity inside a congregation, and he contrasts it with children on a boat in rough water, carried wherever the wind happens to be blowing. His immediate concern is doctrinal drift, but the picture fits any life that keeps changing direction with the weather. Maturity in his account grows in a body of people over years, which is slow work and cannot be sped up by relocating.
A path forward
Write out the reason you left each of the four churches, side by side on one page. Look at the pattern honestly. Sometimes the reasons are all legitimate and they still rhyme.
Commit to your current church for a full year with no evaluating, and tell one person there that you have done so. A stated commitment changes how you behave the week the church disappoints you.
Pray for one specific person in this congregation by name each week. It is hard to keep treating a church as interchangeable once you are carrying particular people to God.
Closing verse
“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
- Psalm 1:3
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