Dear Aldea community - Hi! My husband and I visited a few weeks ago for the first time. We have several friends who attend and have been considering finding a new church home for a while. We are loyal (if such a thing ) Methodists and reluctantly looking for a new church. It’s been a tough search - we want the same principles but with a contemporary message and service, which has limited our choices. Unfortunately, our church was evicted from their building when the County acquired the property and has relocated really far away from us.

It’s a tough decision to make to switch churches  - we are close to our church friends and involved in the leadership. However, with the distance and a pastor change that recently occurred, we have had a hard time attending and find our spiritual life lacking.

Both my husband and I had a mental checklist for a new church home. We never really wrote it down- but would just give each other a disppointed look after visiting a prospective church. We were wary of non denominational churches. We both felt strongly that women are not treated as equals in leadership roles. We were also brought up to discuss and interpret the bible as Methodists and felt this was also lacking when we visited several prospective churches.  After a discussion with Sylvia, we learned that your church was quite different.

So we were so happy to find your church!  I realize (from discussion with friends and reading your blog) that you’ve gone through a lot of change lately.  I wanted to add my comments so you would analyze (and perhaps use to recruit new visitors) what we thought were the highlights:

 - loved the message (Dave Fleming that Sunday); it was applicable to today’s life AND bible based; loved that we had “food for thought” that we spoke about later in the day.  Dave is an excellent speaker!

- nursery: This is important and harder to find than you would think in the community. We have a two year old and were happy to see 6+ little kids there with two supervisors.

- loved the music! Just the kind of music we like to hear during service and very similar to our home service.  We enjoy the relaxed environment, the casual dress and the coffee allowed in service. Our other church was also like that.

- loved the community focus tables. Our home church is also very involved in an orphanage, food banks, etc.  Community involvement is so important.  Church is a great place to build awareness of needs.

- loved the idea of the village groups. We have not participated in an adult bible study group for over a year and have felt it lacking. The idea of “village” resonated with both of us.

- loved the location. Our home church previously met in high school auditoriums, office buildings etc and liked that Aldea was in its own building. I really hope the financial situation improves so that you can keep it.

- Noticed a Sunday school area. We have a 4th grader so we’ll have to check that out soon.

So - in short - we loved your church!  We both walked away with big smiles on our face and have done a lot of “word of mouth” promotion of your church to our friends. Plan to see us again in the near future!

Lea Peterson