Strategy for Future

What is America’s obsession with American Idol? Ridiculous. Here we sit in B&N and a table close by is going on and on about it. Having never watched it, nor planning on watching it, I just roll my eyes. I hope that the television will never be such a slave master for me. I know people who cannot miss their shows, and turn down invitations to “normal” life – interacting with people – so as not to miss their show. My best friend loves, loves AI and will not miss it for anything. She, however, has made it a special event, inviting another couple in her apartment building over for dinner each and every week, thus combining her love for the show with spending time with people.

We talked with my parents last night, and my father agreed with me that OF cannot determine where we live; as long as we are living in the general area, with easy access to NYC, then they can’t ask for anything more than that. So we started looking at school rating websites and it’s overwhelming. How on earth do you choose a location to live based on schooling? We have such a large area to search, but it’s daunting to say the least.

I came up with another plan this morning, or God gave it to me. One of the requirements of Bryon working for the OF is attending an alliance church. As much as I’d love to follow the letter of the law and not the heart behind it (meaning, Bryon occasionally puts his hours in an alliance building and the rest of us would find a spiritually vibrant church), I believe that God wouldn’t be happy with my attitude. Of course, implied in all of that is the assumption that none of the alliance churches are vibrant (2/3 of all alliance churches are plateau-ed or declining, so it’s a pretty solid assumption). However, I think that the better way of pursuing a location to live is to look at all the alliance churches in the areas where we’d like to live, then search for a school in the proximity.

When I mentioned to Bryon he wasn’t quite as enthusiastic about my idea, but said he’d think about it. To him, a good school is more important than a church, not that a church isn’t important, but knowing the state of alliance churches, it’s difficult to put that as a higher priority. If it was a matter of attending any church, then that would make it easier – we’d find a vibrant church, then find a school.

We have to trust that God is in this, that He has our future in His hands, and will provide for us in all of this, including meeting our spiritual needs, and those of our children. If it were just a matter of great preaching, we’ll just continue to listen to Matt’s sermons online, and I probably will do that – he’s just an amazing preacher. But there’s also the matter of our children, and their development.

So the issue can be: do we attend an alliance church at the cost of spiritual vitality? Maybe it will be a moot point, in that we’ll find a vibrant, growing, healthy church in our search; who knows. Obviously I doubt it, but I want to give it to God in the hopes that He’ll surprise me.