Are We There Yet?

New job, new city, new house, new church: why not a new blog, too?

Well, here we are, then.

This will be mostly like the old blog, except without all of xanga's :ahem: idiosyncrasies.

You'll notice that we're still unpacking here, as well as in the house, so . . . you know, ignore the mess, try not to make too many "helpful" suggestions, and bring pie, if you can.

True story: this pie was just brought to us by the "Food Ministry" team from the church we visited this past Sunday.  As far as bribes to come back go, it's pretty solid.  We'll have to check out all the other churches, though.

Another true story: when we first moved back to North Carolina after our time in Paris, we visited all the United Methodist churches in our town.

The first week, we visited a church that was having Stewardship Sunday, where they collect all the pledge cards (if you don't already know, don't ask) and have a little celebration after church.  This was a relatively new thing at the time, just like the Chimes of the Trinity (also don't ask), and you could see people looking around and asking themselves, "Is this how we should be doing this?"

Well, they looked at us visitors and said, "Well, why don't you join us?  It's a free lunch and all!"

And we, being grad students, said, "Gosh, that would be lovely."  At it was.  A lovely fried chicken catered dinner.

So the next week, we went to the church down the road, and that was the week it was having its Stewardship Sunday!  And they were having their celebration after church, and it was partly catered and partly potluck, but they said, "Hey, why don't you join us?  Don't worry about not having anything for the potluck--just come enjoy a free lunch!"

And we, being grad students, said, "Gosh, that would be lovely."  And so we ate more fried chicken, and all the traditional North Carolina potluck items, like cole slaw and potato salad and banana pudding and thoroughly boiled green beans with fatback.

The next week?  Guess.  (You'll never guess.)  The big UMC church downtown that we visited?  Stewardship Sunday.

I swear, I am not making this up: we hit five Stewardship Sunday celebrations the first two months.

We also took advantage of at least four churches' VBS weeks, but that's another story for another time.

Well, we've hit two UMC churches so far here in [our town], Alabama.  We've got three more to visit (I think).  I'll let you know about the rest.