After much deliberation and much persuasion by my church (which I do consider my home church here), I attended The Newcomers' Dinner.
By an equal amount of persuasion, I got the two cooks to join me, and together we ventured through city centre to locate Storehouse, the venue for the evening.
Allow me to say, attending tonight may be the most positive choice I've made since showing up here in Belfast. You're thrown in a smaller room, given food (yummy Chinese food and, naturally, chips (french fries)), and sitting among a bunch of other people who are just like you: newcomers to the church in search of friendship and community and Jesus.
While there, the head pastor's wife, Harmony, and I chatted for a long while. Not only was she kind (a very admirable quality but a wee stifling if not attended with a dose of sass), she was fun. She is the kind of lady that genuinely comes off as wanting to take care of and get to know you. In the first few questions, she asked me why I was here, how long I was staying, and if I'm headed home for Christmas. Queen's, a year, and no.
Immediately, and without any sort of entreaty on my side, she responded to my no with, "You'll not be alone on Christmas, don't you worry. We'll all take care of you. If not with us, someone in the church will want you with them." Even if I make school friends or Belfast friends who adopt me for the holidays, the gesture was enough to make me want to cry.
The rest of the evening, we listened to Harmony and Andy share the vision of the church and a bit of their own spiritual journeys. The most memorable bit to me was that they explained how very non-competitive Vineyard Church is. "We're not the only church in Belfast. Vineyard may not be for you. If it's not, let us help you find a church body." I think that's beautiful. There's no begrudging of "sheep stealing," it's a recognition that everyone's spiritual life and church background is different and that's okay.
Finally, I made friends. Like, friends I could actually see myself hanging out with in real life. In fact, I decided to join a community group that meets on Mondays in lieu of taking a french class. And, I made arrangements with a couple of the girls to carpool there.
This feels right and good. Engaging--not just observing--the body of Christ tonight gave me energy and filled me up. It's very easy for me here, with my slobbery amount of time and lack of real relationships, to start feeding myself negative self-narratives, and those are straight up from the devil. Digging in is awkward and uncomfortable and totally outside my comfort zone, but I think that's kind of how I know it's the right thing to do. Step one in the right direction.
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