To fill you in on the back story...I met a girl last summer. We fell in love. I proposed. I moved up to Minnesota two weeks ago to be with her and to prepare for our wedding.
Before I moved, I had several job interviews for worship pastor positions. One in person when I visited in July and two others over phone and Skype. I am still jobless, but now I am closer and able to have interviews more easily. I had one last week, but didn't get it because I was not quite what they were looking for. They wanted a piano playing choir director. I'm a guitar playing worship band leader. I even had a phone interview this morning for an office clerk/mail room job for one of the school systems here in the Twin Cities. I've applied for so many similar positions, that I don't even remember where this job was.
In applying for church jobs, Amanda and I have been visiting the churches to get a better feel for where we could possibly end up. Her home church is 45 mins south of us in Lakeville, another of the churches that didn't hire me. The distance makes it difficult to really get connected there, so we are looking for something closer. Which brings me to the story of this weekend.
We visited Substance Church at their location in Fridley yesterday morning. We tried out their location that meets on the Northwestern University campus two weeks ago. The music is top notch, very Hillsong/Elevation styled. The doctrine and core values as described on their website was really something we could get behind. BUT...the preacher was horrible, hence the need to visit twice to see if we caught him on an off-day. Nope, he was horrible. A poor rendition of the health & wealth preachers on tv. Not even good enough to motivate as a motivational speaker. Both sermons we heard him preach were about contractual favor with God. No mention of a convenant, even though both sermons were from the old testament. He never once read scripture or even referenced where he was getting his Bible information from. And in both services, he spent about 20 minutes talking about himself. Bragging and self-promoting his new book. Telling us how Amazon wants to put it on their featured titles list and how Christian television interviewed him. I could tell Amanda was getting frustrated at the lack of gospel by the way she was feverishly taking notes on things she wanted to fact check from his sermon that didn't seem quite right to her. Then she put her stuff down and whispered to me "I don't want to listen to anymore of this crap." So I grabbed her hand and we left in the middle of the service. We had plenty to talk about on the way home and at lunch. We both decided that I would pull my application for their worship position for which I was a candidate.
That night, we decided to visit another church. I applied for the worship coordinator job at The Table, the modern worship service arm of Christ's Presbyterian Church in Edina. We were so happy to find a church with modern worship music, solid Bible teaching, scripture reading, communion, and that seeks to exist as a missional body of believers. I'm not Presbyterian though my grandparents have been for decades. We felt like this was a place we could possibly get connected, and it's only a 25 min drive through Minneapolis. I received an email last week that my resume information was being passed up to those responsible for setting up interviews, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed about this one.
We have a few more churches we'd like to visit. We want to check out Mill City Church in NE Minneapolis where my friend from college Jadah Green attends. She loves it. Plus, Amanda and I would like to have some friends in the area because most of the seminary students she knows are in different life stages (parenting and pastoring) that can make getting to know them and spend time together very difficult. In the event that I don't secure a church job and have to look into other vocational fields, like the office clerk/mail room position, we still would like to have a church home while we are here in the Twin Cities. So we will keep looking.
In non-church/job related news:
I have moved all of my things into our new apartment. I say "our" even though I don't technically live here. I am staying with the family Amanda nannies for until the wedding. It is really odd living out of a backpack for the next five weeks. I take over my clothes for the next day, sleep in their basement, wake up and come back to the apartment to spend time with Amanda before she goes over there to nanny. Then hang out here with her until I pack my things up and drive back to do it all over again. There is no peace and quiet there. They have 5 kids and no WiFi, so I spend most of my time over here at the apartment. The family is great and the kids are super cute, but I'd rather be here. It really sucks having to leave at night, just to return the next morning, but we understand and accept the reasons behind it. Our honeymoon will make up for all the nightly separations. (wink)
Wedding planning is coming along nicely. All the major things are set and we are focusing on minor details such as transportation of all the decorations, creating a playlist to be played during the dinner reception, writing thank you notes for the wedding shower gifts we have already received, and practicing my sweet dance moves.
I hope to compile a photoblog post soon to let you all see what I'm up to. Until then, follow my instagram @benhancockrocks.
