In this day in age, there is a church on every corner, everything ranging from traditional catholic, to catholic charasmatic, to methodist, lutheran, pentecostal. So, where on earth does one begin? Well, the church we settled at temporarily had a strong teacher in the Word, but it just didn't feel like our community. It was only about a 20 minute distance, however the church was not our community. I had my eyes focused on one in the area, however heard some not so good things about their doctrines and beliefs, but I remained curious. Friends of ours started going there and after some time of them spent there, we met with them for dinner to get some of their feedback. I knew they had a strong biblical foundation and were seeking a church that offered that, so I trusted some of their thoughts. So, after our conversations, we gave it a try, and now currently we remain in membership classes within weeks of joining the community, most likely.
Now, what is my point in all of this? From the time we made the decision to leave our last community, we have battled some resistance along the way. Many have been encouraging to us, some, more discouraging. Some resistance has come from the fact that we haven't settled in one community in the last 6 or so years. Some resistance is coming from the "denomination" we have chosen to become a part of. Much of the encouragement has been to go where the Lord leads and seek after truth, trust in the discernment of my husband and go where he feels he needs to be, being he is the head of our household. You see, he was falling apart. Reading the Bible was a past time from time to time. Now, we are all just hungry, hungry, hungry for the Word. We can't get enough. We can't seem to feed the kids enough.
And again, I digress. My point is not to say that one church is better than the other. But I will say this. I have heard the gospel message, weekly, presented in a way, that I haven't heard it before. It is the central message every week. I'm coming from a season of rough anxiety and wrestling with my faith. But to hear the gospel in a fresh sense, I feel renewed. I see joy again. Many don't like churches that just teach sin because it's depressing, and there are those churches that only teach sin. Many don't like churches that just preach love, because we then forget what we once were. I find joy in the teaching of sin AND grace because, as I learned today, the more we recognize our sin, what we once were, the sweeter the sound of grace is. The joy comes in knowing that God still loves me, despite my failures. The cross is the central message. It was Jesus and the cross that saved me, not anything I did or didn't do. It was not a works oriented righteousness. It was grace and grace alone.
You see, I've been criticized for "church hopping" and choosing churches in which there is always someone strongly warning me to stay away from it. And whether our decisions have been right or wrong, God used every single place we step foot in, to help grow us, to help grow me. Folks, God is STILL God. He speaks to us and teaches us at every point of our journey. This is the point of my whole blog. I grew up in my early younger years, Lutheran. That's how I was baptized. From there, we went to a small non-denominational church that met in a house then high school. When that church folded, we ended up in another non-denominational church, and from there another one, and that one was the one at age 13, I moved forward and professed my relationship with Christ. There I remained for most of high school and enjoyed youth group, Young Life and Campaigners. Youth Group was fun, it was community, it was a place I could have a good time without getting into trouble. Then I fell away after high school, and it was pretty bad. Entered a life of partying and immoral behavior, but after 4 or 5 years, I came back to a small church under Open Bible. I immediately became involved and found a group of people that embraced me, because I didn't have much left once I left the lifestyle I was involved in. That church brought me back in and embraced me, showed me what a family was like. Then I met Keith, and as the blog states, I ended up in the Catholic church. And it was there I learned that not all catholics are bad. I had some pre-conceived notions of catholicism, and ended up meeting some wonderful spirit-filled catholics. Then we left again and ended up in a very different church. It was a church of mostly younger people. It was there I learned that the idea of community isn't dead. They were people that loved and embraced anyone who walked in their doors. From there we went on to Assemblies of God and teaching was excellent, but church was slowly dying there. And from there we ended up in a place that did church from home. It was there I learned about tight knit community and an aspect that I've never been aware of before, brokenness. People that had some extreme issues in their lives, extreme circumstances and what the love of God pulled them away from. From there we did the Presbyterian thing for a while. It's there I started to learn a little more about reformed theology. It was a place with solid teaching but community lead us to where we are now, a place where the gospel is the central message alongside of the importance of Scripture and sound teaching of it.
And for my life, I believe God brought me on this journey. I believe in reformed theology. I'm starting to believe that it was God that pulled me out of sin, that I couldn't have done it on my own merit. The relationship that I was in years ago, I never would've ended that on my own. God, through that person, ended it for me. Otherwise, I wouldn't have done it, and continued in that co-dependent relationship. So, when God did that, I just transferred my dependency onto something else. Alcohol and partying, not that I wasn't already doing that, but it got worse. If it wasn't for one party and all my "friends" turning their backs on me, my party friends, I could be a alcoholic to this day. My own friends, people I was part of the "world" with turned there back never to forgive. THAT WAS A WAKE UP CALL. Even they thought I was too out of control. That was all God, not me. I wouldn't have done that on my own. God slowly brought me back to His family. You see, I have nothing to do with it. God DID call me first. I came to Him because He came to me first. That is what I'm learning now. And I still battle with anxiety and co-dependency. But now I can at least count it as pure joy that because of Christ and the cross, I was saved from that life. I thank Jesus every day, that the cross was enough to cover that multitude of sin. I thank God for loving me enough to get me out, to rescue me.
You see, my journey has not been one minute of waste. Do I have regrets? Too many to count. But it hasn't been wasted, not one single moment or incident. God used it all and will continue to do so. I have been a part of at least most of the mainstream denominations for a period of time. But I don't look for perfection, I look for truth. I don't look for leadership that points me to themselves, but ones that will point me to Christ. Folks, I"m not one to slam any church out there because God even uses the sick ones and can make them well. But one thing I will say, it's important to hear truth because we live in an age of relativism where truth is fuzzy. And if you are listening, God will lead you along the journey. And it's not going to look the same for everyone. Maybe it needed to take 6 years of searching to get to this community. Perhaps we made some mistakes along the way, but gosh, here's the beauty of grace. Even in the midst of my failures, God is STILL God and he is still working. Not saying those decisions were failures, but IF they were, THANK GOD FOR GRACE. And this is the grace we must exercise toward each other. We speak the truth in love. We used God's Word for building up, encouraging, training, reproofing.... And we allow God's grace to take people through their journeys. Because we don't always know what God is doing in someone's life. "For His ways are not our ways, nor His thoughts, our thoughts." God is God everywhere.
Please don't take this as me looking at the local church/community as unimportant. I am not saying that at all. In fact, I'm learning through membership in our existing church the importance of staying committed to a local church/community. I just wanted to share a little of my journey and experiences with God's grace. Because in the end, it's never about us, it's about Him, it's about His glory. We are here for Him. One of the ways he brings others to himself is through local church. But also remember, it isn't JUST about the local body, because corporately we are still ONE body with MANY members, inside of and outside of local community. And as long as it's not compromising biblical truth, we must put aside the things that divide us because we ALL need each other and God gave us each other.
Anyways, being I haven't posted in a while, this one is kind of messy, but it's been on my mind. Let us be gracious to each other the same way God was gracious to us.
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