Every time I moved house, one of the first things I would do is to find a new church. This was something I learned as a child, as a church comes with a ready-made community. There are people to talk to, groups to join, people for support, and to support in return.
When I moved out of home when I went to university at 18, the first thing I did was find a church. That church ended up being the one I went to for a couple of years, and the minister there even came to Melbourne to officiate my wedding.
That was a local Anglican church, and the minister was someone who had known my family for a long time. I was welcomed right away and felt at home. They needed some volunteers to help with the youth program and I put my hand up. When I was struggling for money, I worked as a cleaner for a while (that job didn’t last long as I’m not a very good cleaner!). I was immediately welcomed in to a community.
When I got married, we moved away from that church and joined another one. This wasn’t too close to home, however it was one we were welcomed. This was also an Anglican church and was the one my parents were married in! People from all over the city attended and we made some great friends.
We made the decision to move again, to the other side of the city to be closer to work and family, and ended up attending the church I grew up in, and where we were married. We attended there for a few years before moving further out, this time with small kids.
The church we started attending, it was mostly me and the kids, was also an Anglican church, and was the one my Oma had been to. While there, I was struggling with post-natal depression. The community there really wrapped its arms around me and the kids, supporting us in so many ways, from someone praying with me every week, to welcoming me and the kids to playgroup, to helping clean the house when we failed an inspection (that is a whole other story).
When my marriage broke up and I moved back with my parents, we found a new church. For a while we attended both an Anglican and Presbyterian church on alternate weeks before finding one that we all enjoyed.
This pattern continued until about 7 years ago. We moved outside the city and I couldn’t find a church that suited our needs. The kids didn’t feel comfortable in them, then my younger kid had a pretty large health issue and attending was too hard. Lockdowns in 2020 meant we were able to livestream the church we had been attending back in the city… but even that stopped. It got to the point where I had to choose between attending a church first thing on Sunday, or looking after my health and sleeping. My health won out.
Recently, I moved again, and have started attending church again.
It is an Anglican church, and really small. Best part is that it starts at 11am, so I don’t have to choose between my health/sleep and attending church. It’s also walking distance from my home, so I get to walk there each week.
For me, part of being in a church is the community, and it needs to be one I feel comfortable in. It needs to have good, solid teaching, not moralising, and it needs to have people I can talk to, along with being welcoming. I know that there are some people out there who say you should attend church no matter what, but, for me, if I really don’t feel comfortable there, then I know I won’t attend… this is one reason I don’t like the mega churches, I find them complete sensory overload! More on that later.
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