I am a nomad. 

I am a nomad. I live for half of the year in Charlottesville where I pop into different churches, different fellowships, and different seminars. I hear speaker after speaker on a variety of topics. I spend the other half of the year in Oakton, where I have experienced more dearth of variety in my church attendance. My parents settled on our current church quite soon after we settled down here. I have been going there ever since. It was the perfect place for me to grow up and grow in my faith walk. Some of the relationships I formed through this church are the relationships that will last my life time. 

Recently, I have been struggling with the extreme desire and tendency to church-hop. In every church, there are aspects that are valuable and tools of building. At the same time, there are also those areas which need improvement. I recognize this. But I am draw to the ability to go into a church and worship unanimously - just me and God - and to hear a new speaker with his or her quirks and personality. 

New services are full of surprises - they are not comfortable, but they keep me on my toes. 

Getting honest. I think my feelings of nomadicity (I know it's not a word. Let it slide this time) are rooted in three aspects 

1. I think a lot of my dissatisfaction with the church services were due to my experience at Passion. Passion was the wonderful combination of theology and worship. A perfect harmony of heart and head. It is an experience like no other (if you are a young adult and haven't been to Passion - get to the dome...seriously). But the facts come down to this: Passion may not exist in a church body. I cannot keep leaving church after church looking for something that embodies the experience I had over winter break. Something amazing happened in Atlanta when 40,000 young people who love Jesus gathered in one place. That may not be the experience of any one church body. I need to release my expectation on a church to embody Passion.
2. I find it hard to get plugged deeply into a church family and body when I am a physical nomad, dissecting the year by spending it in two different places. I am moved to paralysis for fear that my time in any one place is too short to contribute. 
3. Lastly, most importantly, the root of by nomadicity: "I find in myself desires which nothing in this earth can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world." Thanks, Lewis. Sometimes it's nice to be understood. 

I am a nomad.