We were raised as Sunday church going people. We went to Sunday School, we went to the church service, and then Sunday evening youth groups. As a young family, we were serving on Sundays. My husband was doing IT things for the church he worked for at that time and I typically volunteered to help register kids for the kids ministry. When so many things in our live came crashing down at the same time, we left the church my husband worked at and intended to find another.
Honestly, with the impending doom of our house hanging over our heads, serious family relationship problems, and job loss, we were so overwhelmed. We tried a new church one Sunday in an honest attempt to start over, and it caused me so much stress and anxiety that I literally asked my husband if we could stop going to church. I legit could not handle that extra pressure on top of what was already happening in our lives. This was the first time in our married lives or even before that that we legit STOPPED going to church.
Even the foundation of “going to church” that we had built for ourselves was crumbling right along with our real house foundation. It made us look seriously at what we had built for our lives. We had some wonderful friends that continued to support us, but the reality was the “church” building or congregation we had attended wasn’t helping at all. This was when we decided to start a small group or a house church with our friends. We needed the church body and we weren’t in a place to go to new churches and church shop. So instead, we invited “church” to our house.
1 Corinthians 3:11 “For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.” (NIV, bible app) We were being stripped of that which had been foundational and learning to trust only on the true cornerstone, Jesus.