I have had a few requests recently about joining the church. While churches have seen worship attendance and participation in church life drop, there are still many good reasons to connect with others in a congregation.
Here’s a few:
- The church is a place where we can be profoundly honest with ourselves and others. We can rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, and we find others who will stand with us.
- The church loudly proclaims that the powers and principalities of this world do not have the final word about who we are and whose we are.
- The church offers the opportunity to come together in meaningful ways with other people that we might not otherwise meet. Here in this congregation, we encounter people of different ages, different income levels, different backgrounds, different political parties and interests and we find that we share one faith, one Lord, one baptism.
- The church points to a new future in which the fear of death is destroyed through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and we find that God’s forgiveness, acceptance, and grace available to us over and over and over.
- In the church we can learn to live not just for ourselves, but for others. We can learn to love not just those who already love us, but our neighbors and even our enemies.
- In the church, we find great mentors and examples that can help us see the sort of life we hope to have.
- The church offers ways to celebrate the big moments in life and find meaning in the moments that come between as we follow Jesus and grow in our discipleship.
- The church is a wonderful place to nurture and celebrate the arts, be it singing in a choir or swinging a paintbrush on a mission trip, coloring in Sunday School or doing a drama for VBS.
These are just some of the ways that belonging to a church makes life more worthwhile. I’d love to hear some of your ideas about what church has meant for you. Please drop me a line!
Grace and peace,
Pastor Steve