Church & wisdom dilemma

Thank you for the second round of comments too. A very good friend has just phoned to say they are putting their house on the market and moving 3.5 hours away to be near their daughter & grandchild. Timing is interesting! Its just made me wonder if indeed all the unsettledness Im feeling is more about maybe having to move area not just church! I think like one of you said we should just stay put and wait and see. Like I said we dont want to leave 2 churches. I guess once the new term starts and things settle we may instinctively know its time to move. Someone we know in their eighties has just said to our moving friend that they wish they had moved nearer family 10 years ago so perhaps we should? Tbh a lot of our friends here have moved here to be nearer grandchildren so I guess thats the way it goes. Nothing stays the same and yes ministers move on too and thus the feel of a church changes too. Anyway thanks I feel a better sense of clarity now. Just wish I could take the weather here with me!

Thanks again for the second round of comments. Funnily enough a very close friend from church rang this afternoon to say they are moving to be near their daughter. So another nudge for us! Perhaps all this unsettledness is more about having to move from the area not just the church! Its true to say that a lot of our friends here have moved here to be near family so perhaps we are just coming to the end of an era? As one of you said maybe we should just wait and see. Afterall we really don"t want to leave 2 churches. Just wish we could take the weather with us if we move.

I really don't see any problem, you are not satisfied with the church you attend, you don't think the second one is up to scratch either and you want to be nearer your extended family. It seems to me that the only thing holding you back is you like the community where you are now. So what's more important, your current community or your family. Only you can decide that.

missdeke I think that’s a good insight.

StripeyGran

I can't understand how God would help you decide and yet he or she can't intervene in Gaza.

Sorry but very grateful for any insights into this.

I also wondered why God doesn’t intervene to prevent dreadful things, when I was a agnostic looking into
Christianity. In my case, it was Auschwitz I wondered about. But now I think that as God knows everything and humans don’t, it is very possible that he knows things that we don’t about why he doesn’t intervene. We can never know that God does not have sufficient reason for not intervening.

From what I know about him, I believe he is good, and I trust him about the things I don’t understand.

As for helping someone decide whether to move house or church: he loves them and he decides to do that. I have had the experience of being guided by God and I know many people who have.

Blondiekins

" Someone we know in their eighties has just said to our moving friend that they wish they had moved nearer family 10 years ago so perhaps we should? "

If you wait until one of you becomes frail, or you can't drive, you risk being too old/frail/immobile to cope with househunting, selling your home, and organising the sorting, packing, removal of your household.

I've seen several older friends make that mistake, then find the,selves trapped , too far away from family for family to provide enough care and help. The oldies couldn't even tour round residential homes to pick the best.

Moving churches is relatively trivial. Selling/buying. moving house long distance is tough, and the older you are the tougher it gets

Family can and often do move.

Just move, you are not going to get divine intervention as there are wars and starvation to sort out first.

Move closer to your parents, and son & grandchildren, while you are still young enough to mske the move. It is a no brainer. You will find another church community there, and can keep in touch with this one via Zoom. When push comes to shove, blood is thicker than water.

I can only say what my dh and I did. when I retired miles from our family, first gchild born, I knew I had to be nearer them, though it didn`t work out quite as I had hoped, ie. helping bringing up the gka.s. I was just over 60 years of age, we moved, to a smaller and not such a beautiful area,, I truly felt God told me to go to my present church,, for nearly 25 years it has been good.. dh ill, died, I am still here, church was good, now a new vicar,, nuff said.. but glad I did move when we did.. closer to grown up gks now than when they were growing up,

Move nearer to your family. As we get older, the proximity to family is very important, for all involved. Your seem to have a strong faith, so believe that your God will guide you. He wants us to be happy and what could be happier than being nearer to your family, especially your grandchildren.