A Dilemma

As many newly married couples find out, our friends don't contact us much anymore. There is the unconscious attitude that the married folks are busy being with each other, and don't so much want to be bothered. I've been that way myself with friends who have gotten married, and even with friends who have had children. I assume they have too much on their plate to get together. In any case, that ends up leading to a dull social life for the newlyweds.

Part of the problem for me is that I'm a suburbanite now, and most of my friends are city folk. It takes an Act of Congress for either of us to get out to each other's location, and it makes for a bit of a problem. I have a lot of suburban Mensa friends, which is freakin' awesome, but since I used to be a city person, I'm not so used to hanging out with them. Time to change the social circle. Heidi has a lot of friends here in the 'burbs, but they are under the "no time" impression.

This is exacerbated by the fact that we don't have a church home yet. When I was at First Free, my social schedule tended to revolve around my serving schedule. I got a lot of interaction through that, and being the inrovert that I am, that was pretty good for me. Admittedly, I was serving 2-3 times a week, but that was good. I like serving, I like getting to know and hang out with people who serve in similar manners, and it just tends to be a lot of fun.

However, since we don't have a church home, we are relegated to one-shot serving opportunities, occasional local dinners, etc. These are good opportunities to get to know people, but it generally is a random assortment of people that are significantly different than us. I have no problem mixing with people that are different than me, but there's not much of an opportunity to really bond with them, and that's what's missing.

So here's the quandry: there are two churches that we're considering, and that makes for some interesting problems. I like to serve, and I like people (usually). At Willow Creek, it's a freakin' monstro church. There are serving opportunities galore, and it's a very art-friendly church. They have great music, great preaching, great drama, even great set design. However, we have attempted serving there, and A) people either don't care to get to know you or they are just difficult to connect; and B) they're REALLY disorganized. Both issues would likely be less of an issue in a production environment (sound or music or drama), but it's a bit of a challenge to get into those groups.

Harvest Bible Chapel is also a great church. It's a lot more organized, and Heidi has a lot of friends there, which would make it easier for me to get friendships going. The music is pretty good, the preaching is freakin' AMAZING, but they're not particularly creativity-friendly. Neither of us have really "served" there, but from what I understand, they are much better at administration and thinking through things before they're implemented. I could certainly do sound at that church, and I'd be pretty good with it (and they do have a really nice sound board). And doing that, I'd probably hook up with some good geeks. Their small groups are much easier to get into, and the church, while still pretty big, is of a much more manageable size. But it's still a church in which creativity is somewhat stifled, and that's a huge bug up my craw.

So that's where we stand right now. It's becoming more of an issue, because, for the first time in my adult life, I find myself sitting around and watching TV because we're bored (as opposed to watching a freakin' fantastic show that I would pay to see). Meh, I'm sure it'll come together eventually, but it's a bit of a quandry.