Today was an eventful day, and so it followed to be an emotional day. This morning at church Marc preached about adoption (perfect, of course), and the sermon brought tears to my eyes and the eyes of other congregation members. It is completely possible that today was the last time I will ever hear Marc give a sermon. Marc, if you or Amy ever read this, Great job!

After a wonderful, bittersweet morning, there was a wonderful, bittersweet evening service. Providence normally only has one service a day, but today was the date of the church's particularization (which basically means it's a real church now, not a plant anymore). The reception afterward also served as a goodbye party for Marc, Amy and Caroline. It was a tear-jerker for sure, but still enormously uplifting to see what lies ahead of them.

The particularization service was bittersweet in another, strange way as well. This is the type of event I should have gone through with my old church back home in Colorado. When I was in about 7th grade, my family started going to a fairly established church plant in my home town. We really loved everything about that church. The church family there was full of loving people who truly cared about building relationships and loving Christ. The preaching was solid and Biblical, and we began to grow as a family (very slowly and dysfunctionally, but grow nevertheless) in the Word. The church was moving smoothly right along to becoming its own place - they had hired a youth pastor out of Minnesota, put down a payment on a piece of land for a church building, had a ground breaking celebration, had small groups and Bible studies, was the "home church" for the Covenant Bible College in town, etc, etc, etc. All that a church body could want, right?

And then, for reasons that will remain silent here, our pastor left the church. We all loved him and his family, and it was heart breaking to see him go. This action, due to all kinds of factors, caused a lot of strife in the church. That was step one. After a shaky time of random guests speakers that changed from one week to the next, the church finally secured an interim pastor, who would end up being with the church for about a year and a half, I think. He was wonderful and everyone loved him as a pastor, but he was only a temporary fix. In the next year or so (I can't remember exact dates) the church moved locations, dropped the idea of a new building, let the youth pastor go, lost a number of people in the congregation due to petty grievances, and then created a pastoral search committee, of which I was a member.

Eventually, we hired a new pastor out of the northeast and he and his family moved to Colorado in hopes of building the church back up. Perhaps with this new pastor, people thought, the church can get back on its feet and finally cease to be a plant. This never happened. Tithings from the congregation fell to an all time low, the worship leader (with whom my family had been great friends) left, more strife came into relationships and the church leaders eventually put the existence of the church to a vote. Should this church continue with its mission, or should it close? One Sunday evening in the fall of my high school senior year, the church closed its doors for good.

It was ugly. People become ugly. The people I knew and loved and still love became restless, cowardly, mean, non-confrontational and finally gave up all together. Perhaps this truly was for the best (it must have been, since it happened, right?), but to see such events unfold in that manner just about broke my heart. My parents have stayed in contact with and have been rebuilding relationships with many of their old friends from that church. This gives me hope that there can still be healing from old wounds. Even now I see pictures of the people from that church or see them in person and my heart fills with sorrow and love at the same time.

So, as one might imagine, to be sitting in a particularization service at a different church than the one I was originally "supposed" to be at was strange indeed. However, seeing that it was possible for Providence to achieve what my previous church could not gave me hope as well. I'm so thankful to be in another place where there is community and relationships, a love for Christ and the preaching of Biblical truth. God really is good. For me, I guess, to witness his goodness, as untimely as it may be, is a wild thing indeed.

Hopeful.