Last week’s church attendance was 101.  I’m not sure about today’s, but again, it was very slim in numbers.  For me, church began with me asking myself, “What is this offering me?”  There are clearly many groups at church that cater to many people in our congregation.  But, I find almost nothing that caters to me.  I do attend the Men in Mission group, but aside from that, I find really nothing else that jumps out at me to get me excited about church.

Then I began thinking about all the things that I could be doing in order to create a group that caters to me.  Our congregation is an older one.  The majority of people are seniors, and those who aren’t seniors are the “middle-aged.”  I’m not saying anything negative against seniors or the middle aged, but neither of those describe me.  With one young couple who visited today, and a couple of others who are young singles, I got up at the end of the service and made an announcement inviting young couples and young singles to talk to Sarah and me about getting a group together.  This could be to have a Sunday school class together, but I see it going much further than that — to go out to dinners or lunches and to cultivate friendships.  That’s the one major factor missing from my life right now.  I just don’t have any friends — people who are my age, who are young professionals with no kids. 

I’ve gotten so sick of it lately that this week I actually threw all my nerves out the window in an effort to find a friend.  A contact through my job had called me to talk about a story opportunity, and I later asked if he would like to hang out sometime.  So on Friday, we met up and had a beer and just talked.  It was refreshing.

I guess sometimes it’s not enough to sit back and wait for things to happen.  Sometimes you just have to take the bull by the horns and make things happen.  Just like sitting in church and realizing that it’s just happening for me, I guess the reason is there’s no one to make it happening or exciting.  Maybe that’s God’s way of telling me to do something about it.  Our theme at church this year is to witness and serve.  I hope I can get this group going and it’ll be my way of putting myself out there for God.