I am sure there are plenty of threads like this but I felt I wanted to put my voice out there.

My background was what I would call "lazy Christian". My parents used the church for daycare back in the 70's, but I really don't remember it being a big deal for us.

When I was in boot camp, the option was given to go to service on Sunday and I choose Catholic because the option of being agnostic was, basically, punished. Couldn't put atheist on dog tags, it was Non-Denominational.

My wife and I got married in a church with a Christian minister, mainly for our families expectations and comfort. I don't even mind attending services for events with family, but we aren't a Christian household, but more secular humanists.

Now here we are, in 2024, and everything seems to be against us. We have white knuckled our way in raising 2 kids to adulthood, one gay and the other trans. It's been a struggle, but without my wife doing ALL the lifting (I have a 4 hr daily commute), we would not be a happy family.

My wife suggested that we needed to "create a community" to help carry burdens and give us the opportunity to shoulder others burdens. I said "great... Church". She comes from a Southern Baptist background but also now a secular humanists. She then showed me information about the UU fellowship near us, reminding me that we met a group of UU members when we were at the DC trans rights march. (They were really nice and not at all what I expected).

So, we watched a live stream of our local service and were commenting about everything we saw to find where we would feel that it wasn't for us. From the music (Natalie Merchant, Simon & Garfunkel, joen Lennon), to the message (Native poet(s) and being thankful), to not seeing a single symbol of religion (mainly looking for Christian symbols), to the words used (never heard God or Jesus, except from the congregation a couple of times).

I woke up this morning being thankful that, even though we haven't been yet, we may have found a community that we could be accepted in and find a way to give back and be part of.

I am actually excited to go to service (fellowship? I need to learn the words to use) on Sunday.

Tldr: new member and excited to (maybe) find a community after a lifetime on our own.