Belonging Beyond Ritual: Living Faith in Community (Built Story - Week 1)

This episode explores how authentic Christian faith is lived out through genuine community rather than religious checklists. Jared and Kate share their journey of finding belonging in a new church, highlighting the importance of being known, building friendships, and serving together—especially during new seasons of life like parenting. The conversation emphasizes spiritual growth as a shared process, learning from those who came before, and welcoming others with humility and vulnerability. Their hope and prayer is that the church will keep moving beyond ritual, embracing real relationships and active love in the wider community.

Transcript

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All right, guys, good to sit down and talk with you today and just talk about life and talk about the church. Real quick, why don't you guys just introduce yourselves and tell us a little bit about who you are? So I'm Jared. This is my wife, Kate. We've been married for 4 years this year and then just have a new son, 3 months old.

Been coming to the church for a little over a year. So you guys are sleeping great right now? Yeah, fantastic. Oh, yes. Fully energized.

Yep, full 8 hours every night. Um, yeah, it's a dream. Yeah, no, I can tell when you're fibbing. Yeah, but life as parents, are you settling into new rhythms as parents, feeling like life is good? Yeah.

This is an awesome season, watching our kid grow up, watching him decide he wants to stand at 3 months. Oh, love that. Yeah, trying to like do the like, okay, cool, what phases are we supposed to be hitting? You know, what milestones are we supposed to be at? You know, trying to not go too far past them.

What's dangerous? Yeah, right, yeah, yeah. When it's too soon. You look at your house completely differently. Yes.

Oh yeah, everything is dangerous. I think we look at life completely differently too. There's probably some deep truth to that. So much shifted in a day. Like, he was handed to us and we brought him home and suddenly it's like the dogs are different, you know?

How we think about driving is different. Yeah, I was terrified. I've been driving for most of my life, you know? And then all of a sudden the first drive home from the hospital, you're like 10 in 2, exactly the speed limit, like checking your mirrors all the time. Like, okay, this is gonna be it.

This is when I get in an accident.

I remember that exact same feeling the first time I brought my son home. 10 and 2, we're locked in. I'm fully focused. But yeah, I love that you talk about that. Like, just everything feels different, but there's a lot of things that feel the same and like you carry over your faith and you carry over who you are.

And now even that starts to look different, though, how you live that out. But just to kind of go back to the beginning a little bit, tell us a little bit about maybe how you guys— what's your faith story? How did you get started on your journey of faith? So I think it's relatively similar for both of us. I grew up in church, grew up going to church, and all through college as well, and kind of bounced around different places when I was in school, and, you know, have just kind of grown up in it and kind of seen that development of faith where you kind of go from like, okay, I'm here because my parents bring me, and then to really the making it your own and kind of making that transition into kind of grown-up faith, if that makes any sense.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think my faith journey has been less straight necessarily. Like, I also grew up in church. We moved around a lot, so went to different style churches, different denominations, and then my faith journey kind of took a wide berth to get back to where we are now. So now we're just kind of in a place where we're learning together, growing together, and kind of restarting.

Yeah. And now how did you get to Sherwood Oaks specifically? We were kind of looking around, so there was definitely some just like churches in the area Googling, you know, trying to figure it out and kind of had a list in our head. Um, then a friend of ours suggested, um, for a connection point, because knowing, knowing we were going down this road of, of having a child, and, um, actually suggested the mom-to-mom group. And so there was a little bit of like, okay, cool, looking at that, like, oh, that's actually attached to, to Sherwood Oaks.

And Oh, let's go on a Sunday and see what we think. And so we came, and I don't remember exactly now when, but we're kind of struck by just the welcoming atmosphere first off, and then the sermon being preached that morning. Sean was just particularly vulnerable, which was something that at least to me was unique for a church of this size. It was a kind of a cool moment of like, oh wow, this is a very personable church. And very quickly you kind of saw just the welcoming atmosphere and the focus that both you guys on the worship team too take, you know, of, oh, we're going to play a set where we're off the stage and we're just having the cross on stage.

And this really kind of being the focus and the family and the community was very apparent quickly. Yeah, those are some of my favorite Sundays, those real simple ones. Yeah. So which came first? I've known several families that have come to Sherwood because of Mom2Mom.

It's a great, great ministry. So which came first? Did you attend on a Sunday or did you show up to a Friday Mom2Mom first? Do you remember? I've actually never been to the Mom2Mom.

We heard about it. We heard about it. We were like looking and then we just never— she never made it that part. So I love it. Mom2Mom's doing work and you don't even have to.

We went to the like connect group gatherings to try to meet people. So I did meet the Mom2Mom like leadership. But at the time I was like, well, we're not— we don't have kids yet. So like, I shouldn't be going. Well, you have a kid now.

Of course. And a month later we found out we would. So this will be this September, will be my first time going. Okay, so you're getting ready to engage with Mom2Mom. So there, answer my question.

So church came first, but you knew about this, and so now Mom2Mom. So there's a community that you're getting ready to look forward to being a part of. So, so that's, I mean, that's super fun. Uh, and kind of on that note, like just talking about community, like what, what is, how would you guys describe the importance of like church community to your family, to you personally, and that piece of of living out our faith. You know, we're called in scripture like not to do life alone.

Like the faith in our life is meant to be lived out in community. So talk about like that importance for you guys personally. I don't think you can have faith or have church without community. So like in my learning about this, I've understood communion to be, you know, when we're sitting together with people, when we are like in community, when we are having a meal with somebody, not necessarily just like a ritual on Sunday. And so I think that's essential.

Like if the Holy Spirit is present like with us, then we are in communion, we are in community, and that is like church. So that's how I've come to understand it. So like without the relationship, it's really nothing, I guess. I think to piggyback off that, like there's definitely a process of where you're trying to, like I said, you need to build community. You have to have community in order to grow in your faith, I think.

And I think having people around you that can help you through good times and bad times and, you know, be there to help celebrate the birth of a child or, you know, to help clear a tree out of your driveway you know, or whatever. And so I think that importance of having those people around you that are in similar life stages and are willing to kind of come alongside and build you up, and then you can do the same. I think it's vital to that and something that was very quickly shown when we came. And we were fortunate too. I think it was like the next Sunday we came, it was a Discover class.

Discover class. Thank you. Yeah, the Discover Sherwood Oaks was like that next Sunday. And so it kind of was a natural transition into meeting other people and then connecting with both the praise team and getting us connected in those other ways too. What struck me, and I think what struck both of us, was when we came to the church, we met a couple of the deacons on the first day and they remembered our names, right?

And so when we came back the next week, we were greeted by name and it felt like there was a place where we belonged. And we had been to some other churches or visited trying to find a new home down in Bloomington and didn't really have a similar experience. So that was cool. We went to the Discover class, met some other families who were new, went out to lunch with them, kind of went out on a limb and invited them out to lunch and had a great time and decided we would keep coming back. And then like what, 2 weeks later was the core group connect event.

I don't know what that's called. Yeah, yeah. It's Next Step Sunday now. Oh no, yeah. Now it's Next Step Sunday.

That's so good. Yeah. So I've only been to a handful of Discover classes 'Cause they meet on Sunday mornings during service. And, you know, I'm off, obviously busy most of the time, but I had popped into one and it was the one that you guys came to. And you guys and Bob were in there and his wife.

And I remember walking with you and Bob as we were walking down the hall and you both start talking to me about interest in worship ministry and wanting to volunteer and then making this connection. And then I found out after the fact, after I left and went back to service to do my stuff, like found out later, oh yeah, they just like ended up going out to lunch together and like they're besties now. And since then, I mean, you and Bob all summer summer were like our pinch hitters on the worship team, like serving in all these different roles because everybody else is out of town. And you guys are like, no, we're just here, we'll, we'll serve whenever. Down to play.

Yeah. And I mean, but I've loved that heart. Like, you guys just— once you found a community that felt like it welcomed you in and you felt like— I mean, kind of, you said you were known by name, which I feel like is such an important thing. And a big church too. Like, yeah.

And like, once you found that, like, you guys didn't have— like, you just dove in. Like, all right, we're gonna jump into a connect group, we're gonna jump in, we're gonna serve right away, we're gonna be a part of all these things. And I just I love that. I mean, I love the initiative that you guys— but obviously, like, that shows the importance of what that's meant for you guys, right? Being a part of that and how you've grown and, and setting that up for your kid and future kids and, and whatever else, setting up that kind of community.

And, you know, on that, like, we all stand on someone else's shoulders in the faith. I've heard that said before. Like, there's people that have gone before us that have raised us up, and we're standing on their shoulders. They're the foundation that we're standing on. And then there's people that are going to come after us Uh, that we're gonna, that they're gonna stand on, on our shoulders.

Um, can you guys talk at all? Like, is there any significant moment or people that like, you're like, I'm standing on the shoulders of this person, you know, because of this, they've done this for me. Like, does that resonate with you guys at all? Like that kind of concept? When I think about the people that I like really admire in the faith, um, is there was one particular person I was involved in Chi Alpha when I was on or at IU Indy.

Yeah. Um, and so in that group, like I was part of the leadership, We all had, most of us had grown up in church and we were familiar with the rituals and the norms. And one particular person walked in and said, I don't really know what I think. I'm just here. I like Christian people.

Everyone's nice and I wanna learn. And that was the strangest thing at the time. I was like, why are you coming to a Christian community if you're not a Christian? But that honesty has always stuck out to me. And even now I wanna be that person.

It's like, I don't have it figured out. You know, I'm learning, I'm growing as I go, and I'm okay, like, allowing the people around me to be in the same spot, right? And I think one of the hardest things to do is to be in a community where you feel like everyone else fits in or everyone else knows what's going on, but maybe you think differently, and that's a hard place to be. So I want to be that person that is just okay with where everyone is and can welcome, like, whatever stage of life people are in. And I think that, like, that aim at curiosity and vulnerability has been a huge piece you know, again, that we've seen across the board, you know, both from church leadership, from Sean, and from everyone that we've met is just like, I'm here to— like, I'm curious, I'm vulnerable, I want to learn and grow in my faith.

And I think that has been something that we've both resonated with a lot, and we appreciate that level of vulnerability. We've been places where it's, you know, I have all the answers, and like, I am you know, the final word on things, and so I think having some of that has been an interesting piece, and to kind of go off of that, my family growing up, like my parents were a huge piece of that, of my faith, and I think both of them were very instrumental on, you know, hey, you know, this is the basis of our faith, and this is the basis of our relationship with God, and then giving me the kind of the tools to then dig into it myself, and so wanting to do for someone else the same kind of concept of like, hey, you know, this is, I don't have all the answers, I don't have things figured out. I'm gonna be honest and vulnerable with you. If I don't know, like I'm gonna do my best to find that answer. And, you know, really focusing on the building relationships part of it, you know, versus it always being a like, I have to like teach you things.

So yeah, I don't know. Yeah, no, that's great. I think, sorry, now I'm thinking back. They were also in college, like I think one of the most formative pieces the formative years of my faith was I got to go to a home church for a little bit. And it was not what anyone had known like church, what I had known church before to be.

Very different context. Right. So we went on a Wednesday night and we just took out our Bibles and, you know, we went through verse by verse and line by line. What does this mean to you? What are you seeing?

And we'd go through and go, what does this word actually mean in the original language? You know, and I learned so much about, you know, God and the Holy Spirit doing that. And so much more than I had just on Sunday. So I think that's where I really got to like dive in and then realize like, oh, I can, I can read this, I can understand it, I can search out meaning too. I'm not necessarily like— I don't have to rely on the pastor on Sunday or, um, you know, whoever's leading our home group or whatever.

So that was great, um, getting to actually like, you know, read into the original text too and take that over for myself. Yeah, I love that, standing on the shoulders of like a whole community right there in that that little moment. Yeah, and looking to build, actually like find more of those people also. Yeah. Like, and in this new community, like also searching out and looking for other people to, for ourselves to connect with and to find, you know, others to kind of stand on the shoulders of, like you put it.

Yeah, well, and yeah, you guys have, you know, like I said earlier, you dove right in. You guys are part of a connect group and that's going pretty well. Like you've already made, you know, quite a bit of friends and connections there. It's quite a rowdy bunch that you're in with. I know that group pretty well, and yeah, you've got some fun.

It's a good time. Yeah, it's an appropriate group for where we all are. Yeah, for the right season of life. A lot of babies in that group right now. Yeah, definitely.

Yeah, growing quite a bit. As we wrap up this conversation, you know, one final question. You know, as God is working to build his church, like the big C church, the Holy Spirit works in us, through us, to build his church. What is your prayer for our church, this local church expression? What's your prayer for our church in this moment?

I think the big thing is continuing the work of getting out into the community and bringing people not just the Word of God, but also like, here's the example being lived out. Here is the service. Here is, you know, one of those things where Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care kind of concept of does this church community and this church body— and it does demonstrate Christ's love— and then it's like, okay, that opens up those opportunities for conversation of faith and living that example first I think is a big piece of that. And so just continuing in that mission I think is— it don't seem like there's any intent of going away from that obviously, but like that just continuing and growing in that deeper I think would be kind of that My prayer for that. Yeah, love that.

I think my prayer would be that we continue to just strip away like the idols of what we believe church to be, or like the ritual of, you know, we come here on Sunday morning or we meet on Wednesday night and we do these things, we check these boxes. Even in like in our personal lives of, you know, I, from this time to this time I'm in prayer or whatever, that we begin to strip away like the rituals and the requirements and just get to see people eye to eye and love them for who they are and where they are. And I think that the church is doing that right now. And that's my prayer, that we continue to just be honest and be genuine and get to know people. Love that.

Yeah. Well, thank you guys both for giving some time today and sharing your thoughts and your prayers. And I've loved getting to know you guys and can't wait to see just how God continues to use you guys in this community and beyond. So thanks for the time. Of course.

It's a good time.