Introducing ComChurch

Well, I'm assuming this post is gonna take me a couple days to write, but I noticed that there's a "Save as Draft" button of the bottom of this screen, so we're gonna give it a shot. I'm also going to include pictures of some of our friends from ComChurch as the post goes along, mostly for the purpose of breaking up this much text and hopefully to make it a little more interesting. (btw, I started this almost 3 weeks ago)

It was a year ago this month (actually last month, but it's taken me a while to finish this post) that the Park family began the uninviting process of looking for a new church home. There are a lot of great churches in B/CS. Several of them are fairly well-known, large, churches that seem similar to Richland Hills where we have spent the last 10 years. We assumed that we would be at one of those. We visited, and they were good, but we just didn't feel welcome, or needed, or some other word that I can't think of right now. Then we visited ComChurch (short for Community Church). We first heard of ComChurch because my sister, Sara, had attended there while she was in school. She learned of it through Breakaway (an on-campus ministry).

We went, and as David admitted later, he was not very excited about it. Mostly because it was small and we were very used to mega. ComChurch meets in an Intermediate School. So we walked into the cafetorium and immediately met Ken & Anne Fogle. David recognized Ken from a CS City Council meeting he had been at the week before. So that was neat. They ended up inviting us to lunch that day.
(This is the only picture I could find. It's Ken & Anne's three foster kids. When I get a recent one of their family, I'll post it)

The worship time was incredible!! The sermon was OK (I don't remember what it was, actually). But the clincher for us was toward the end of the "assembly time", they had a baby dedication for one of their former members (they are now missionaries in Spain and were home on furlough). The pastor handed the mic to Dad and Dad said, "OK, everyone get your Bibles out. No, I'm serious." He waited for everyone to retrieve their Bibles off the floor. Then he said, "Now, I want everyone to turn to your favorite Bible verse. I'll wait." Again, he waited. Then he said, "Now, I want you all to stand up one at a time and read your favorite Bible verse over our child." At which point, David and I thought, "Yea, right. Like people are going to actually stand up and read out loud. This guy is nuts. Crazy missionary!" But then, people did it. They got up and said things like, "I pray that you will know how deep and how wide and how long the love of God is for you." "I pray that you will be rooted and established in love." It went on for about ten minutes. It was so beautiful!

Chris, Jennifer, Harper, Hudson and Braxton (not pictured)

We left and headed for lunch. I asked David, "Well, what did you think?" He started to tear up and said, "I want that to be where the Lord wants us." We were both overwhelmed with everyone's desire to be open, real, unashamed, and unafraid with each other.

We went back the next week and this time Samuel went to class. At the end of the service, the pastor said, "My wife had a little boy who was visiting in her class this morning and when she asked if he would be here next week, he said he didn't know because his family hadn't decided if they were going to buy this church or not. So if you are visiting with us and interested in "buying" ComChurch or just want some more information, please talk to one of us." That quote came from Samuel. I guess we had looked for houses to "buy", and now we were looking for churches to "buy". Out of the mouth of babes. :)
Thad, Amy, Aiden, Ella Grace

In the past year we have grown so much. We have learned, we have been challenged, we have been loved, we have been needed, we have been a part of community. We're still not certain the role God has brought us to this body to play, but we are certain that this is where He wants us.

One of the exciting things that is in the near future for ComChurch, and we believe for the Parks, is a church plant here in College Station. The leadership of ComChurch stands on the idea that once you reach about 120-140 people, your community starts to break down and you have to start implementing programs in order to meet the needs of the family. Because they prefer to meet those needs through close, intimate relationships, a church plant has always been on their radar. Right now we believe God is paving that path. For the past several weeks, we have had over 200 in attendance. And "all" we did was pray for more college students. We believe this is the Lord confirming that this is the right time to plant a church. So, Lord willing, in August of this year, ComChurch will "multiply/birth/plant" whatever you want to call it. And as of now, David and I hope to be part of it.

Here are a few characteristics of ComChurch:
* ComChurch has about 150-200 people on Sunday
* ComChurch meets in a "sancturorium" (David's new word for Santuary/Cafeteria/Auditorium)
* ComChurch has 4 pastors: 2 are full-time, 1 is part-time, 1 is vocational (that means he has a day job)
* ComChurch does not have adult Bible classes (all the adults are setting up the sancturorium on Sun mornings)
* We do have ComGroups (aka Life/Care/Home Groups) which meet in people's homes once a week, without kids (the church hires babysitters)
* ComChurch has instruments, although very few (guitar, piano, bass,usually-- sometimes less).
* We take communion once a month instead of once a week. This has been an adjustment, but the positive has been that when we do take communion, it is the focus of the entire service rather than only taking 10 minutes. We have had some really powerful, meaningful "agape feasts".

Ross, Staci and Sam- Ross and Staci lead our worship time on Sunday mornings.

One of our favorite parts of ComChurch is the number of transracial adoptions we found here (or ones that are in process). When we arrived there were two other families with adopted African American boys within 6 months of Jeremiah's age. Now there are at least 3 other families who are in the process of adopting African American babies as well. This is a huge blessing to us as we parent sweet Jeremiah. The idea that he has that kind of community is so exciting to us.

Well, there you have it. ComChurch in a very small nutshell. I really could go on and on about all the things God has done and is doing through this group of people. But I'll leave that for future posts. Hope you enjoyed the small insight into our journey.