notjustamilitarywife

If you aren’t religious in any way, shape or form, don’t try to meet new friends at church.  If you’re successful in meeting a fabulous forever friend, then that’s just an awkward conversation waiting to happen the first time they want you to attend a retreat or join a bible study with them.  If, however, praise music doesn’t make your ears bleed, you enjoy a good scripture discussion every once and a while, and (this one’s the kicker) you believe in God in one form or another, then joining a congregation is potentially a great way to meet new people.

Now, in the interests of full disclosure, this one didn’t work for me either.  I’ve tried this in the last few places I’ve lived and no dice on the new friends.  It seems in my denomination (Episcopalian), people generally attend church with their family until they branch out as new adults, and then the desire to sleep in on Sundays becomes too great and they drop out of the scene for a few years (My husband and I are guilty of this).  Once these young adults start families of their own, they come back to the fray.  So if your church is like mine, you’re going to have more luck meeting people if you’re a little older and you’ve already started your family.  If you are nearing or have reached retirement age, then you have hit new-friend-gold in the Episcopal Church.  Retirement aged Episcopalians are awesome.  I have many family friends back at home that fall into this category that are more fun to hang out with than plenty of people in my own age group.  However, when you’re 25 in a new place, you just can’t invite retirees over for poker night.

But I digress.

Churches often offer more than just Sunday services, so outside of coffee hour you can get to know people at bible studies, parenting groups, and social events.  In general, you can usually assume that someone you meet at a church event is probably a decent person.  And if you attend the same church, you most likely share a lot of the same values.  Unless you’ve been assigned to a one-horse town, you should try out a few churches before settling on one, because the congregation is going to be different at each and you’ll probably feel more comfortable at one or another. 

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