Find A Friend, Not A Church
Good news: You don't have to go to church on Sunday. One service in a church building each week isn't so important after all. The important thing is to develop a friendship with somebody. For a lot of us, we have honest questions about Jesus, about faith, about the Bible, about our families and our lives. Find someone, a Christian that you know and like, and talk to them more often. Make excuses to hang out, have them over to your house or have some conversations on facebook.
Don't feel like you have to attend a local church regularly to be a Christian. Don't feel trapped by this requirement. Don't get stuck focusing on going somewhere for some reason. Just do normal stuff with good friends, ask those deeper questions and look for God in your life.
Find a friend, not a church.
It's not about rules or belonging to some specific group. Heck, in my last post I followed up on this and mentioned our responsibility to be a friend to someone else. Don't even worry about that. Everything else is secondary.
We're trying to find Jesus, the real Jesus. Somehow, someway. Real, in our lives. Jesus our friend.
5 comments:
Is this intentionally almost the same as the last post?
Yes, it is almost identical. Half way through I note the reason for that.
The most important thing is developing this relationship with God. The rules and responsibilities just aren't that important in comparison, even the most well-intentioned ones.
I didn't like how my previous version of this post talked about the relationship aspect and then about our duty to go be a friend. Those two statements kind of clash, and the focus on us with God gets lost in it.
That's sounds a bit weird, I know, but it's something that I'm just starting to see these days.
For the record, I'm not against church. I know several people, including Ashleigh, that have really found something valuable through church. Heck, I wouldn't have met Ashleigh if it wasn't for church.
However, if finding a church is a hindrance, then don't worry about it. The important thing is finding God and developing our relationship with him. However we can make that happen, it's all good. Granted, I think that having a close friend is crucial regardless of whether we attend a church or not.
So I'm not against church. The key is to find something that works for you, that draws you closer to God and Jesus.
I found my way back to God BEFORE I found a church....what or rather who I found first was Sherry...Someone to answer my questions (I still have a ton, not to mention the fact that I've been having a difficult time lately trying to accurately explain what God has been showing me). Sherry did not push me into a church, she merely helped me see, based on some things that were happening at the time, that God was trying to get my attention.
As Jamie said, had it not been for church we would not have met, and I can say with total sincerity that his influence in my life has been life changing. It wasn't until I met Jamie that I realized that even though I had come back to the Lord and understood His love, I had never really learned what it meant to truly be alive in Christ.
So, basically all I'm trying to say is that, over all, it is the friends that I now have in my life and the things that I have learned, just from seeing them lived out in their lives, that has shown me what being a Christian means....not finding the "right" church. Now, I try to use my time at church, and anywhere else I happen to be, to be that living example for someone else.
Well said (both of you). Jamie I could dig deeper by asking what constitues having a relationship with God in your opinion? What does it mean to truly have a relationship with God, because honestly it feels much the same to me as having a relationship with another part of myself, in my mind does that make sense?
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