Why do things have to change? Why do we (or others...or both) have to move on when things might seem so ideal and perfect? I believe the answer is found in Acts 8:4. By this point, the believers in Jerusalem had to scatter, due to persecution. Before this, they had been together, having "everything in common" (Acts 4:32). Can you imagine how wonderful that was? Jesus had just ascended to Heaven. The Holy Spirit had come. People were coming to Christ daily (Acts 2:47). These believers had been part of something bigger than themselves...something that includes us today, and beyond! I wouldn't want to leave something that wonderful...would you? But, Acts 8:4 gives us a clue as to why they had to move on.
"Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went." There you have it right there. They needed to leave Jerusalem, taking the gospel with them to those who had literally never heard. Was the persecution a good thing? No. Was it good that friends had to say goodbye? No. But Romans 8:28 gives us insight into this as well. "And we know that all thing work together for the good to them that love God, who are the called according to His purpose." God used these painful, difficult circumstances for His good and glory, and for the good of these first-century Christians. They became missionaries.
There's more to the story, though. I imagine that, deep inside, they still cherished those days in Jerusalem with their first Christian friends. Maybe in the midst of rejoicing over a new person coming to Christ, they felt just a twinge of desire for bygone days with old friends, wishing they, too, could share in this new victory. But their hope was in knowing they'd see each other again. That is the hope of all believers. We will meet again, in the presence of Jesus.
I have experienced this in my own life. I grew up in a very stable neighborhood where everyone was good friends. That was very nice. However, I grew up at three churches. I often wish it had been just one, but each one served such a vital purpose in my life, and I'd like to talk about them, and draw a conclusion.
 |
| A beautiful old church in Lucas, Iowa. I did not grow up at this church, but thought the picture beautifully illustrated my point. |
Corona Heights Baptist Church was close-knit. We had maybe 200 people at it's largest point in time. Most of the families were part of Corona Heights Christian School, a home-school group. Back in the 80's, homeschooling didn't have the acceptance it does today. We were registered as a private Christian school. We had yearbooks and everything. Back then, a lot of people said negative things about home-schooling. The biggest questions was, "What about socialization?" If done correctly, there is plenty of good socializing for home-schoolers. Our church's home-school was just like the church, close-knit with love. We had extra-curricular classes (such as art, choir, etc) on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Fridays, we alternated between skating rink days, park days (which were picnics in the park) and field trips. Most of us also went to Sunday school and AWANA together. It was very common for us to see each other four or five days a week at least. On top of this, our families were all friends, and we spent a lot of time visiting each other. I was never lonely. I never felt left out. I never felt less than. I didn't know insecurity. I was happy to be just who I was, accepted for who I was, and accepting everyone else for who they were.
When I was nine years old, I was baptized at Corona Heights Baptist Church. I had gotten saved at age 5, but I had grown into a deeper walk. I was finding I had less in common with kids my age. I wanted to go the distance with God. I wanted to follow His plans for me. I wanted to take that stand for Christ. So, on June 2, 1991, I was baptized. I was the youngest person to be baptized that day. One junior high student was baptized, one high schooler, and the rest were adults.
Life was so fun. This is my "Jerusalem" church. The one I look back on and cherish in my heart of hearts. When I was a young adolescent, things began to change. It is a long story that doesn't bear telling, but things fell apart at this church. Leadership made errors in judgment. Many of my dearest friends left. For the first time in my life, I felt loss, loneliness, insecurity. In this case, we stayed, but watched many we loved go. Some moved away. Others just found connections at other churches in town. It was a hard time. The church began to feel stale. The place held a thousand precious memories (and always will for me), but all the joy was gone. The glory had departed. We finally left ourselves, but only after really trying to fight the tide. We did all we could, and it was time to move on. That was also traumatic for me. Corona Heights Baptist Church eventually closed for good. A Spanish church met at its location for a while, but when I visited California over Christmas 2018, I discovered that the building is 100% gone. The property is now a shopping center, with not even a hint of the joy we once had there. I cried, I'll be honest.
The next church we went to met entirely different needs in my life. Needs I didn't know I had. This was Canyon Hills Community Church. This church met at a local elementary school a few miles south of our neighborhood. After losing my closest friends, I had a harder time bonding in a new environment, but I did make friends. I was surprised to find I became friends with the boys in the youth group more than the girls, but I did. They were a lot of fun. We would play games like volleyball or ping-pong. The activities we did were a lot of fun. There was one boy there was was very special to me. In an innocent way, you could call him my first boyfriend. He gave me my first boy-compliment. We had a Christmas formal dinner for the youth group. I wore my best dress and did my hair in my favorite style. I wore stocking and shoes that complimented the dress. This boy came up to me and told me I looked very beautiful. I grinned for a week about that. When I remember it, even today, it makes me smile at my happy young-teen self.
Another thing I got to know at this new church was contemporary Christian music. Back then, our local Christian radio station didn't play a lot of music. It was mostly preaching (which I am not complaining about). The only way you could find out what was coming out with Christian music was to attend Christian Skate Nights at the roller rink (which we did) or spend money on tapes at the Christian bookstore (which could be risky, in case you didn't end up liking it). Canyon Hills had a worship team that sang a lot of the praise songs from that era. My favorite was "Thy Word", which was taken directly from Psalm 119:105. Whenever I hear that song or read that passage today, I think about the friends from Canyon Hills. The pastor's daughter had an amazingly beautiful voice, and she would often do special music before the sermon. It was through her that I learned about new (at the time) albums by Point of Grace or Cherri Keaggy. I still love the hymns I grew up with at Corona Heights, but Canyon Hills gave me an appreciate for praise music as well. Of course, that was 90's praise music. Today's worship music is vastly different, and I like it too! I actually wish those 90's songs were still common in churches. Many were taken directly from the Bible. They are very beautiful.
Another fun thing at Canyon Hills was that I got a lot of babysitting jobs. Back then in the mid-90's, I charged a dollar and hour per child. I felt rich when I would get paid! I was a business woman. This was not only good experience, but I bonded with these families who hired me. I loved the way the mothers would pick me up and take me home. We would have conversations. I felt like they treated me like I was an adult, and I loved the feeling. One of these mothers, Debbie, still keeps in touch with me, and is an constant source of encouragement. Her kids are adults now. This makes me feel old, since I changed their diapers! Debbie always paid me with a check, which added to my feeling like an adult. Since I didn't have a bank account at first, she would make the check out to my mom, who would cash it out and give me the money. Wanting to feel more grown up and get my own paycheck (with my own name on it), I opened a bank account at Union Bank in our Ralph's grocery store. I was so proud when Debbie and others started making the checks out to me, personally!
A final lesson I learned at Canyon Hills was the importance of ministry and calling. The summer I was fourteen, I worked in Vacation Bible School. I was the assistant to the first-and-second grade teacher, Mr. Johnson. I was mainly there to help, but once class got underway that first day, I was suddenly hit with something I didn't even understand myself. I asked Mr. Johnson if I could share something with the kids after the lesson. He gladly agreed. When it was my time to go up, I just started talking, and God filled in the gaps. I shared the gospel, and, that week, fourteen children received Christ in our class! I remember the amazing feeling of having God use me. Mr. Johnson wrote me the nicest note, which I still have today. A few years ago, Mr. Johnson passed away, but before he did, he called me and thanked me again for helping him with VBS back in 1996 (which was almost 20 years earlier). He was a good mentor. That week of VBS taught me that God wanted me to share the gospel. The boy I had liked so much also helped in VBS, but he wasn't really into the spiritual aspect of it, and God used that to show me that I wanted to eventually marry someone who was as excited about this stuff as I was, so I moved on from this boy. Incidentally, his little brother ended up helping me lead kids to the Lord that week. That was when I decided that I was going to wait until I was eighteen and out of high school before I had a serious boyfriend, because I wanted to focus on becoming the person God wanted me to be in my life. The joy I felt in that classroom, leading those kids to Christ, has stayed with me all these years.
A few months later, God led my family to Glen Avon Community Church, in an area that is now the City of Jurupa Valley, but back then was just an unincorporated part of north Riverside, CA. This third little church also had friends, blessings and lessons for me. As with the other two, I still have lifelong friendships from it. I also remained involved in this church until my husband and I left California in 2016.
Glen Avon Community Church was an old church, started in 1927. I remember celebrating their 70th anniversary with punch and cookies in 1997. I guess a few months before we joined that church, they'd been down to a handful of people. That was when they had called Pastor Joe Phillips to be their pastor. Pastor Joe had been energetic and determined. His grit, coupled with the Holy Spirit, brought people in, so that when we arrived, there were almost 100 people. It continued to grow after we joined. One woman who joined at that time, Sharon, ended up being our pianist, and I would eventually work with her to direct kids' Christmas and Easter programs. Another woman, Carol, worked with me in children's ministry. I was able to visit Carol during our recent trip to California. Sharon is with the Lord, but I'll get to visit her one day too.
Even though the church had been around for decades, it was almost like a new church plant. Just as we were coming, they were starting a new youth group and Sunday school classes. It was fun getting in on the ground floor. We fit right in.
Glen Avon sang mostly the hymns, and that took me back to the earlier time in my life at Corona Heights. It also did incorporate some of the praise songs we'd learned at Canyon Hills. Pastor Joe preached out of the King James Bible, something that none of our pastor's had done. I had memorized in AWANA out of the King James, because that's all that was available back then. I was of the last generation to memorize out of the King James. When I was a young adult, many groups (such as AWANA), started printing their resources in different versions. So, all that to say, I was familiar with the King James from my memorization in AWANA, but hearing a pastor preach out of it was a little new to me. I grew to appreciate the eloquent and dignified language. To this day, I have a special place in my heart for the king James Version...but I actually prefer the New American Standard for accuracy. Bible translation is a fascinating subject to study. I did a paper on the subject in Bible college.
The teens at Glen Avon were very kind and welcoming. We had a lot of fun with them. I still missed friends at the previous churches. We still saw some of these friends. My parents had a weekly Bible study with a family from Corona Heights that I had known all my life. I also continued babysitting for our Canyon Hills friends who had been hiring me. I was happy to still have this contact. These people were precious to me.
Pastor Joe would take us teenagers out to do evangelism, and it was exciting to continue seeing God work in and through me! Pastor Joe really believed in us kids, and that was a good feeling.
A year after we joined, Glen Avon started having AWANA. I was sixteen, and was allowed to be a leader. I loved this. I had missed AWANA so much, and being involved again was the first dream that ever came true for me. The church also started the high school AWANA program, but had it on a separate night. That way, we teens could have our own time, and still be leaders for the younger kids. I loved being involved that way. We laughed a lot! That stands out to me more than anything. One time, Pastor Joe had us doing a word search. A fun-loving boy in the group found the word GOD. Excitedly, he called out, "I found God!" Everyone laughed and said, "We've been praying you would!" It is still a joke to this day! This boy's brother found KMART (which wasn't intentional in the word search, just happened to be in with the mixed-up letters), and said, "I found Kmart!" Though not quite as funny, it also became a little joke. I still think about it every time I go to a Kmart.
One really fun thing we did during high school AWANA was this scavenger hunt game called "Bigger or Better". We would be placed on teams. Each team was given a toothpick. We had to go door to door and exchange what we had for something bigger or better. We would have an hour, and then meet back at the church with our final exchange. I remember one time, a group came back to the church with a litter of kittens!
The summer after I graduated from high school, I went on a mission trip to Africa. The church was 100% behind me. Pastor Joe told me I was his hero. No one had ever said that to me before. There was no question that this was a mission-minded church. I was loved.
I continued being involved at Glen Avon. In my late 20's, I began working for the church. My title was "Missionary to Children". I networked with other ministries to do children's ministry, as well as developed the programs within our church. Those years are filled with memories of taking teens on mission trips, conducting fun Christmas and Easter plays (the best was our Charlie Brown Christmas play!), taking kids to camp, teaching Bible clubs, going Christmas caroling with the kids, church picnics, and training other adults to evangelize kids.
Pastor Joe had retired when I was in my early 20's, and we had another pastor, Ernie, who eventually passed away. Ernie's son-in-law, Mike became the next Pastor, who is still there today. Pastor Mike officiated my wedding. He was the one who had encouraged my ministry pursuits in my adult years. He had encouraged me as I waited for the right man that God had for me. It was only right he perform our wedding. Pastor Mike's wife, Amy, was our wedding coordinator. I still love their family greatly, and am so grateful for Facebook, so I can still keep in touch conveniently.
After our wedding, Walter and I lived in Lake Arrowhead, California, in the San Bernardino Mountains. We attended a church up there. But we never broke ties with Glen Avon, and would pop in for visits now and then. It was only when we moved out of California that we had to really say goodbye.
Moving on is hard, especially when you felt settled and happy where you were. I can look back on these three churches and see how God had purposes for me in each one. Each was a tool in my life. And really, there is only one church. All believers are God's body on earth. We might meet at different congregations, but we're one body. We're all part of something bigger than ourselves, just like the Christians in Acts. When God scatters us, we can share the gospel and serve in our new place. One day in Heaven, we'll be together forever. There will be no more goodbyes. There will be no more scattering. Times of joy and closeness are a reflection of Heaven. In the meantime, being moved on has one very exciting aspect. We'll know more people when we get to Heaven! I never thought I'd know so many fellow Christians. I know believers from different churches in California, as well as in South Dakota, Iowa, and New Mexico (and really, many other places because of my mission trips, etc.). That's even better than never having to move or leave.
