Family History

With all this Christmas commotion, its made me think about family. My physical family as well as my spiritual family. My family is from County Antrim, Ireland. I only know this because we have a book on it. The patriarch of my family was a guy named William Anderson. His grandson was named James Anderson. His nickname was "Tyger" Jim. He married a gal named Mary "Polly" Miller. I'm not from that Miller line, I'm part of the Anderson chaos, even though my last name is Miller. My descendents were big on starting churches. They started two. Rockey Springs Presbyterian Church in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania and Nazareth Presbyterian Church in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I've no idea if these churches still exist. The closest I ever got to a Presbyterian Church was going to an extremely loosely affiliated Presbyterian college.

And the tradition continues, my spiritual family is starting a church as well. The Ring started out as a college ministry of Parkview Baptist Church in Baton Rouge, La. And in 2006 will be launched as the Ring Community Church. I've only been going for around three years now. Practically since I've been in Louisiana. My mother wanted me to find some "kids my own age" to play with. She was a teacher here in Baton Rouge, so she was asking around about college ministries. I'd recently graduated college and didn't know a soul. So someone recommended Parkview. We all go as a family to a Sunday morning service. And then I try the college class. I hated the college class. I was new and wasn't really loving the whole church shopping idea. I'd found in my limited expertise that its usually a miserable experience. And this time around was no different. I try Parkview for a month. Every Sunday I met the same people in Sunday school who didn't remember my name. It bugged the ever livin' tar outta me. I remembered theirs and there were like 16 of them and one of me. Give me a break! So I started praying about it. Was I supposed to stay here? Would someone finally remember my name? Or was it back to trying to "fit in" somewhere else? Around this time, there starts to be a buzz in Sunday school that the Ring was starting back up from Christmas break. Uh, ok, the Ring. What the heck is that? So I'm still praying about if this is where I am to invest my heart or not. God not only tells me this is it, He tells me to jump right in. Don't try and fit it, just be yourself. Head first, no safety whatsoever. That's exactly what I did and I've never looked back. And God has blessed every facet of my life because of trusting Him and diving in when He said leap.