Yesterday, I attended three church services and would have attended a fourth. Mench and I almost always attend both 8 and 10 am services at our church, because Mench serves and I want to be there with him. But it is mainly because I have come to the conclusion that one cannot get too much biblical learning and I love biblical learning, love it.
I also love going to church. Which is quite ironic, considering for many years I barely set foot in a church. As a youngster, I was always taken to church with my grandmother, godmother or aunts. My mom wasn’t much of a churchgoer. However, once grown and married, my husband, who was an total church boy,and I went to church sporadically. We never really discussed it, probably felt as many do, that we had to get ourselves together. Hmmph. The one thing I have come to know is that we cannot get ourselves together. God has to do that for us and we must be willing.
Mostly, I think it is because we view coming to God as giving something up. The Mr. and I loved to party and have our umm, beverages and knowing so little about the word, we just figured when we stopped partying and partaking we would umm go. Lord have mercy.
But life will change your mind. When we moved to Jacksonville in 1999, we had been married 21 years had a grown child and one who was almost grown and we both felt this urgency for the Word. At first, we visited here and there. And I was the queen of television gospel. I would get up early on Sunday mornings and start cooking and would watch hours and hours of televangelism. Did I learn anything? Umm hmm but not much.
When we finally joined a church, I was totally sold out to it. But, the Mr. wasn’t feeling it so much, so we went on a church hunt. The Mr. had always been partial to a particular TV minister and once we went there we were home. I had never been in a church that went exactly by the bible word for word and broke it down in such a way that I actually GOT it.
Also, I discovered that I loved fellowshipping with other believers. I knew more people than the law should allow…but those who were on spiritual paths, umm not so much. When people say to me, ‘God knows my heart and you don’t need to go to church to worship God’ I agreed, but as part of my witness I tell them that going to church is part of it for ME and in order to really understand what I have read, to have it broken down to me, I need church and to be around people who are of the same mindset is a beautiful thing.
Now, I am not going to tell you that church isn’t filled with drama and hypocrites and all the other wordly stuff, because you know better. However, I will say that once on a spiritual path, and become more grounded in the word, you get to the place where you can get what you need from God in the midst of all that stuff. I have seen scandals and all manner of mess, but it didn’t stop my praise, didn’t diminish my belief, didn’t make me run screaming out the door looking for a new church, because what I get now is that it is not about all that. We are there to serve, worship and praise God and I know for sure I can get all of that right in the midst of a hurricane and church tsunami.
Be BLESSED!
Angelia
www.angeliamenchan.com
