I think God's throwing me subtle hints that I need to be hangin' with the elderly.

I haven't talked much about our church search because it ended almost as quickly as it began, and the transition to our new church has been fairly uneventful. Remember that church with the smoke and flashing lights? The same church where we attend homeschool co-op? Well, that's the church we decided to call Home. Turns out they have a "blended" service, which is a more traditional service. Which means no smoke or flashing lights.

We like having both services available because, really, if you ignore the flashiness, the worship in the contemporary service is outstanding. Then again, the worship in the more traditional service is pretty good too. We prefer the pastor of the blended service even over the main pastor who preaches in the contemporary.

To get the Perfect Church, then, if we could have both worship leaders lead using the contemporary format minus the smoke and lights followed by the blended service pastor's preaching....well, I'm not naive enough to think there is such thing as a Perfect Church. That will only happen when we are all one church in Heaven. But this perfect combination has been a topic of discussion for my husband and me nonetheless. I suppose at the very least we could make it a board game called The Perfect Church. Of course with the inherent subjectiveness about such a topic, there could never be a winner.

Anyway.

The one thing about the blended service that makes it a little less than a perfect match is the fact that there is very little diversity. And I'm not talking ethnic diversity here; there is some of that. I'm talking about Hair Color Diversity; there is very little of that. The hair color is mostly...white. NOT that I have anything against the old folks. It's just that this fact makes it a little bit more of a challenge to form new friendships with people our age who have children our children's age.

Wednesday night I found myself once again in a room mostly full of, uh, more seasoned people. There were three choices for adult classes: a class on God's promises, one about marriage, and one about parenting. I almost always choose the one about parenting because, well, that's where I always feel I fall short. But, really, how many of these classes do I need? NOT that I'm anywhere near a perfect parent at this point, but after awhile, they all tend to impart the same advice and wisdom. So why am I not getting it? In pondering this question and these classes, I had an epiphany. Not an extraordinary one because it's something that really ought to be obvious to a Christian: No matter how many self-help books I read or study on marriage and parenting, I will never become a more Godly wife OR mother unless I focus on my relationship with God, on who I am in Christ. So I opted for the class entitled God's Enduring Promises.

Apparently no one my age has had the same epiphany. Or maybe they just haven't read as many self-help books on marriage and parenting because there was not too much middle-aged youth represented in the room. But you know what? There is always time for forming new friendships with my peers. And who says I can't develop friendships with the older folks? And who knows? Maybe those older folks, being wiser and all that, will offer me parenting and marriage advice...a three-for-one class!