More Change

by Mrs. Smith on January 8, 2018

Yesterday was our first time attending our new congregation (aka: ward).

Boundaries are funny things. Skinny little lines — usually invisible — and yet things can be completely different on one side or the other.

In sports, it’s obvious what a difference boundaries make. Like with volleyball:

Inside the lines = point for you.
Outside = point for them.

 

I like playing in the bounds. It’s always made sense to me. God sets up boundaries and when we play inside them, we win. When we play outside them, we miss out.

In our case, we moved 100m down the street and — poof! — we crossed the invisible geographical boundaries and bounced into a different congregation.

A big part of our life now includes a new set of faces… and those wonderful, beautiful souls that we used to worship, learn from, and play with… Well, they’re still right down the street, but they won’t be sitting in Sunday School with me any more.

Would there be any negative repercussions for playing (or in this case, worshipping) outside the lines? People do it all the time for their own reasons. (Like, we took a couple months to decide for sure if we wanted to stay in this unit or return to the other one after its remodel. And then we waited a couple weeks so we could jump over in the new year.) We could probably have kept going to our former congregation. I don’t think God would smite us down for it. 😉

But I see it less in terms of negative consequences and more in terms of positive consequences lost.

If you stay where you’re comfortable, you miss out on few friendships, new opportunities to serve and learn. The new ward misses out on what you bring to the table, which they might really need, and you miss out on what’s going on there, which you might really need.

But change isn’t always easy and yesterday had lots of “ohhhhh boy, this is different,” kind of moments. Like the new building. What in the world? Weirdest construction for a church building I’ve ever been in.

There were also lots of “awww, what a nice ward,” moments, too.

You know when the discussion in Sunday School dregs up a bunch of differing perspectives and semi-irrelevant, off-the-point stuff, and people are getting stir-crazy and it’s just a wonky feeling? Cringe!

And then, in spite of all that, the teacher connects to the Spirit and the room just fills with light and peace, so that you flip from “oh man, how we gonna get outta this mess,” to “whoaaaaa, this is awesome!”

That totally happened and it was great. I kinda wished I’d had an olympic score card to hold up, cuz that teacher totally earned a 10.

Most comfortingly, though — over, under, and through the whole 3 hour block — there was that familiar, “this is the right place” feeling.

I may not know more than a handful of faces and even fewer names, but it’s the right place.

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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Greg January 9, 2018 at 5:17 am

Glad you guys are going to your “right” ward. In all my experience, folks who attend a ward that they do not live in the physical miss out on what the Lord has in store for them. I learned a while ago that to have your records moved to a different ward other than the one you live in requires approval from the First Presidency. I think that if we feel uncomfortable for whatever reason (I’ll miss all my friends, I’m afraid to get out of my comfort zone, etc.) attending a new an different church unit that we block out blessings and experiences that we were meant to have in our lives.

Hooray for this post! It was so good to see all of you in Utah. You are all amazing! Love you all.

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