Come As You Are Church

Hey, Jesus loves everybody, even the naked.

In high school, Ryan became a Christian at North Point Community Church. He then interned there for what seems like forever, and eventually, returned to work there post-college. He hopped around a little between roles and campuses, and a finally a few years ago decided to break off and work for himself. At the time, he was burned out on the whole Sunday-morning-thing (and so was I), so we consciously took a little time away from church to regroup.

A few years later, and we're still trying to figure it out. In fact, getting back into Sunday mornings has been a true struggle for us. Besides the actual need for motivation to get up and ready, there's a lot of logistics and restrictions between service times lining up with E.V.'s nap times, and truthfully most Sundays it just doesn't work out. I'm thankful that our church offers a simulcast online because many weeks it's our best connection point; the baby can be peacefully slumbering in her crib, Ryan and I can still be lounging in our pajamas and the dogs can be snuggled up next to us as we hear Andy's sermon. No parking, no crowds, no distractions. It's not the same as seeing your friends in person, running into previous co-workers and enjoying watching Emma Vance get excited about playing with other kids, but let's be honest--it's easy and does the trick.

Now that E.V. is a bit older and her schedule is slowly shifting from two-naps to one-nap, figuring out if we're going to make it to church on any given Sunday really is a game-time decision. This morning we debated back and forth (since Emma Vance slept an unheard of almost-FOURTEEN HOURS last night) and finally agreed that today was a North Point Online day. As the 11 o'clock service began, E.V. cried her I-just-pooped-myself cry from her crib, resulting in my changing her mid-service (on the bed where I could still hear the sermon). She was clearly very excited to escape her crib during nap time and was very wiggly and very interested in Andy's voice. As she managed to break free of my control and over to the laptop, I couldn't help but laugh: Is this what the North Point staffers envisioned for their at-home audience? North Point does claim to be a casual, come-as-you-are type church, and I suppose Emma Vance takes that notion to heart... :)