way overdue

Wow, we are terrible bloggers! We haven't written in a few weeks, but here's the thing... Aubrey and I both have iphones so its pretty rare we actually go on a regular computer and it would be a pain to type a whole post from our phones. So we both apologize if there is still anyone reading this blog.

Trying to find a new church has been a sometimes difficult journey. The church we were at before we both felt so comfortable at, it was our second home. We knew so many people and were really invovled. Going to new churches where we don't know anyone you sometimes feel like an outsider, which I guess we were. Every church we went to we had different criteria we were looking for and we would bring our church hunting journals and write down notes of what we liked and what we didn't like. What I learned though is finding a church isn't about which has the best worship or biggest sanctuary, it's about feeling connected and as if you belong. Aubrey and I both felt that way when we went to Crossroads. Every church we went to after that we always said, "I liked it, but not as much as Crossroads." So we've decided to go there and try it out. Maybe this won't be where we'll stay but we feel we need to give it a chance because we both have a good feeling about it.

I think we've both learned a lot on our church hunting journey. I know I have. I've learned that God has a bigger plan for my life and as difficult as it is to find a new place to call our "home church" it is what God wants for us and I feel we are doing the right thing and following his plan.

Thank you so much to everyone who has been following our blog and praying for us and encouraging us throughout the past semester. It really has meant a lot to both of us that you all have cared enough about us to read this blog, even if we aren't very consistent.

Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a joyous New Year!

xoxo,
aubrey & brooke

Parkview Church

Hello! Sorry we have been MIA for so long. We both have been kinda busy with a few vacations to Vegas and then LA. But we are back.

So a few weeks ago Brooke and I attended Parkview Community Church in Glen Ellyn. We attended the 9:15 service. When we walked in the band was playing music the music was kinda like a Rock band was playing. The service started with worship which Brooke and I were both kinda ify on. The songs kinda seemed like hymnes turned into rock songs. The senior pastor wasn't there so the student ministries pastor was the speaker for the day. I'm not sure how we really felt about him he was a good speaker but we just didn't connect with him. He talked about Martha and Mary in Luke 10:38-42 and how you need to keep "your eye on the ball" or your eye on God.

There was some good things about Parkview that we liked. It was close to home and the dress was very casual. There was people in nice church clothes and then people in sweatshirts. Parkview also seemed to have a great children's and youth ministry that we could be involved in.

Brooke and I have heard a lot of great things about the senior pastor. So maybe we will attended again when he is there to see if you like it a little better.

The next church and possibly are last church we are going to attended is First Presbyterian Church in Wheaton.

Make sure you check us out next week and I swear we won't take a couple weeks to put it up!

Rain on a Sunday morning

Last we were MIA because we were downtown cheering on our dad as he ran the Chicago Marathon! But we are back again this week and tried out a new church this morning.

Crossroads Community Church is 0.3 miles away, on my GPS on my phone it says that it literally takes 1 minutes to drive there and it would only take 5 minutes if we wanted to walk there on a nice morning. It is a HUGE plus for us, it was so nice going to a church that was so close! Crossroads is fairly new, this year it's celebrating its 10 year anniversary and they have only been in that church building since August 2008.

Crossroads has two services: 9am and 11am. We went to the 9am, because we both decided that going to later services probably aren't right for us because we feel like by the time we get out of church 1/2 the day is gone. When we first got there I swear there were maybe 20 cars in the parking lot, I think due to the fact that it was raining this morning and it was the earlier serivce. The first thing that really struck me was there were two men standing outside the church with umbrellas and they would walk to someone without an umbrella and lead them inside-- so nice!

The church itself is pretty small, the service was in their gym and there wasn't a huge crowd. We sat down towards the back in an empty row, two seats down a man sat down in the same row. When the worship leader said to greet someone around you the man came up to both of us and shook our hands and asked our names. It wasn't until after we started worshipping again that I realized that that man was the Senior pastor of the church. I just really liked the fact that the pastor was sitting with the rest of the congregation and was seated on stage or in the front row. Even after the pastor welcomed everyone he sat back in the same spot for more worship.

Speaking of worship... they had a contemporary and traditional mix of music- which I actually enjoyed. I'll be honest I'm usually not a huge fan of hymns but I liked the way the put their own "twist" on them. The pastor's message was really powerful and I felt like it was something I needed to hear. Here are some main points I took away from the sermon that I'd like to share...

-"God has called us to ordinary faithfulness, with this he is pleased."
-"God leads us through hard places for His glory and for our good."

I also like how there was a lot of scripture references in the sermon, and what the pastor was saying was being "backed up" by the Bible. As he was talking he didn't just stay in one spot he walked around the gym and he was looking at people while he spoke.

As far as possible involvment we found out there are a lot of ways to get involed through the childrens and student ministries to the many different small groups they have going on throughout the week. As we were walking out of the church we see the Senior pastor again at the door saying goodbye to people and he said to us, "Aubrey, Brooke, hope to see you again." I loved that the senior pastor was the one who was saying goodbye and also the fact that he remembered both our names.

Both Aubrey and I came out of the church today really liking it. I gave it a 8.3/10 and I think Aubrey gave it an 8. We both liked the atmosphere and the fact that it was a small and we could easily get to know people.

We're Back!!

Sorry it's been a couple weeks but I've (Aubrey) been gone the last couple weekend and Brooke wanted to wait till I was back so we could go together.

So this week we went to First Baptist in Wheaton. We went to the the 11am service, it seemed to be mostly filled with Wheaton College students and some older couples. The service started out with 2 worship songs and at that point I was already a little iffy. The songs were OK but I just didn't feel any energy from anyone. Not the band or anyone else attending the service. I really like a church to start off with a good Worship. Where you can feel the bands energy and they are excited and really into the songs and so is everyone else. Worship is one of my favorite things to do at church.

So the service went on with the assistant pastor leading the service that Sunday, talking about how we need to make God more important and we need to become less important. His sermon was very good and really educational. I felt like I took more notes on what he was talking about than how I liked the church and writing down our "judging criteria". After he spoke we did communion which I really liked and then the band started to play a couple more songs. So then after a great sermon and communion the worship seemed to get better. I don't know if it was just because all the college students were finally awake or that everyone kinda got pumped after the pastor spoke but the worship ended really well.

Overall I gave the church a 7.6. I liked it a lot. There seemed to be a ton of things Brooke and I could get involved in. From children's ministry, to youth ministry and even some woman's bible studies that seemed to be interesting. The church was definitely way way smaller than our old church and Willow Creek which was kinda nice. There was definitely a more friendly/family feel. Another good point is that it was so close to our house. We left at 10:50 and got there in less than 5mins. I don't think Brooke and I have every attended a Church service that close. When we were there we signed in as guests and wrote our address down and this week we got a letter from the church, just saying thank you for coming and hope to see you again soon. I thought that was really nice. It showed that they really try and reach out to new people and thank them for coming and inviting them to join them again.

I definitely think this is a church Brooke and I will go to again. With it being so close and very open and friendly it seemed like a church we could really get into!

We still have more churches to "hunt down!" The next church we'll be attending will be... Crossroads Community Church.

Please continue to pray for us on our Church Hunting journey and that God will lead us to where He wants us to be.

"He must become greater I must become less."
John 3:30

HUGE

I wish I counted how many times Aubrey or I said something along the lines of "Oh my gosh, it's so big," "This is huge," "Where are we?" To say that Willowcreek is overwhelming is a bit of an understatment! (By the way that's a picture of the Chapel just so you can get an idea of how big it is if you've never been there!) Even turning into the parking lot I felt like I was going to Six Flags, curvy roads that lead to parking lots for thousands.

I really did not know what to expect, I had never been there before (Aubrey had.) The picture of it in my mind was that of the Allstate Arena or the Sears Center... and let me tell you it sure felt like it! There were times I felt like I was on a school field trip with the coffee shop, food, court, and the bookstore. We got there a little early to make sure we got parking and to explore a little bit (and of course we wanted some coffee!!) The church is really cool. The student areas are awesome and seem like a fun place to be. We found out there ther are around 5,000 students and it takes about 1,000 volunteers to run it all... and they are ONLY 90 short! Pretty incredible if you ask me.

As we were sipping on our Frappes in the main "food court" area there were huge screens that had a countdown till when the service started, at about 10 minutes to go we decided to make the trek into the chapel.

We found good seats close to the front. The worship was great! Both Aubrey and I really enjoyed it, probably because we haven't been to church in over a month so it was nice to worship with such a large congregation. Since yesterday was the 10th anniversary of 9/11 the service focused on that, which I though was a good reminder and a way of remebering what happened. I think we both really liked Bill Hybles as well, he was funny and clear and he kept our attention (which sometimes at church is difficult.)

Aubrey and I both have notebooks that we are going to bring with us to the different churches so we can take notes on the church and the sermon. We have some main categories for "scoring." But to be honest I don't remember all of them even though I came up with them so we'll have to talk about those in a different post. But the last one was "Overall Experience" and this is where we both are going to rate the church 1-10.

I'm not too surprised but Aubrey and I both gave Willowcreek a 7 out of 10. We both pretty much had the same concerns: the distance, our other church was about a 1/2 hour away and sometimes we would skip church because we didn't feel like driving. Also, if we ever really wanted to get invovled with anything with the church it would be an extra trip out there and I'm not sure how well that would work. Another concern of ours was definatley the size, its HUGE tons of people, it would be easy for us to blend in and we both felt it might be hard to get to know people when you see so many different faces every week. Something we agreed about was that Willowcreek would be a church that we could say "Let's go to Willow this Sunday." Just as something different, change it up a bit because we both did like the service and worship we just aren't sure if it'll be our new home church.

Thanks for reading our blog so far and being apart of our journey.Be sure to check back soon... Aubrey is gone these next two Sundays so I may do just one Sunday by myself, because I want her to be there so we can make the decision together.

Drum Roll...

Our first Church we are visiting on the hunt is Willow Creek in South Barrington. I'm excited but nervous at the same time to visit this church. It seems by looking at the website it has a lot to offer but I was there once before for a conference and felt like I was in an airport rather than a church. It seems like a great church it has a huge auditorium/chapel area, a bookstore, Dr B's Cafe (a place to hang out before or after the service) and a food court area called the Harvest. But one thing I am really looking for on our church hunt is a great Middle School Ministry to be apart of and a ministry where I can connect with people who are my age.

Now from what I've heard they have a great Middle School Ministry and its big. Which makes me a little nervous at our last church the Middle School Ministry was a pretty good size but it wasn't to overwhelming. From looking at the Willow Creek Website their Middle School Ministry looks pretty awesome!! They seem to do a lot of big events and concerts which is really cool and their curriculum seems interesting too. Their is a website just for Middle school and it is packed with a lot of stuff which is nice.

Now for things my age to get involved in they have a group called Axis it's for 18-29 year olds. It also has a big website which has a lot of information on it which is encouraging because it hopefully means the group is a pretty descent size which I like.

I'm excited for this weekend to start our hunt. I pray for Brooke and I that we find a Church we really like and feel connected to.

On the hunt...

When you want to apply to college, buy a house, buy a car, or even choose a resturaunt to go to, what do you do? For me, I type it into google and research my choices. What is the best choice for me? You can learn so much information just by googling it and although, you probably shouldn't base a huge decision like buying house based on what you read or saw on the internet. But what you see and read are reasons why you want to go visit that house. When trying to find a new church to go to it really is not that simple. I can't just type "Churches in Wheaton" into google, I'll get way too many choices. And I haven't seen a website that rates churches, because how can you? People who have a church they go to on a regular bases obviously like the church they go to, how can someone give a non-bias opioion of their church when they go there? I wish it was as easy as the show House Hunters on HGTV (one of my favorite shows, as you could probably tell, hense the title of the blog!) but it's not.

When I make other decisions in my life I look at the facts, like when looking for a college. What school has a good education program? How much does it cost? How far away is it from home? I could go on my laptop and find all that information out about all the colleges in the United States just while sitting in my own bed. Church hunting is not that easy. You have to physically go to different churches and see what is best for you, where do you feel most comfortable, and where do you think God is calling you to go. This is the dilema my sister, Aubrey, and I face.

We recently left a church we loved due to decisions made by the leadership of the church. We just didn't see how we could continue to go and serve with a church that we couldn't trust the people who were "in charge." It was one of the hardest decisions of my life so far. Aubrey and I both helped with the middle school ministry so we not only had to leave we had to say goodbye to so many kids we love and kids we have watched grow up.

So, this is where we are at right now. Church-less. We took a little time off from going to church to process and we now feel that we are ready to start our adventure as Church Hunters. Last night we wrote down 8 churches in the area that we had heard good things about and we put each piece into a flower pot. Each week we are going to pick a piece of paper at random and go to that church. Hopefully through this process we'll be able to figure out a new home church for us, somewhere where we feel we can grow, worship and serve God.

This is our journey. A place where we can write about what we thought, felt, etc. And maybe we'll be able to help other people who are on the same journey as us.