Godlink #1: The Church

For me, the most visible and effective start to finding Links to God was when I started going to church. When I first joined a Community of Believers.  That's where the scales started falling from my eyes. For the Apostle Paul this happened in a direct encounter with Jesus, but for me it was a little less dramatic, more gradual, and started in church.

When I went to church for the first time since my late teens, it had been over 20 years since my last purposeful visit (weddings & funerals aside). Those first months in church I was still black with sin, and knew it, kinda. It's amazing what you learn to accept, do and feel as right when you're drifting in the world. So I knew I wasn't "perfect" but it was in church I realized the true horror of my sins. The actual effect they were having on my life and on the lives of those around me. And no I wasn't threatened with hell. Rather, I was taught about God's grace, and of the existence of sin and it's impact in this world.

As my eyes opened more and more, I was more and more shocked. Stunned. I couldn't believe I thought I was "ok" when in reality what I was busy with in my life was nothing short of demonic. And again, no one pointed this out to me from a podium- all they did was encourage me to seek God further, in Scripture, in the counsel of others, inside myself. All I did was respond to God's call- the Prevenient Grace embedded in me at conception.

I have come to see church as a critical part of my Spiritual life. When blogger Christian Piatt talks about going to church, he refers to a saying: "Going to Church doesn't make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car". I concur. Going there in itself doesn't qualify me for heaven, doesn't give me any special privileges or rights in the Kingdom of God- I don't earn "brownie points" with God for going. But it is in that environment where other things happened- where I was supported, enabled, freed to take risks by confessing my struggles, where I opened my soul up. I forget who said it: "Church is a safe place where one can take big risks". It is in the pews of my church where I was finally set free from the bondage of sin. Freed from the secrets, the lies, the captivity.

http://www.usccb.org/home/images/man-praying-silhouette-church-iStock-home.jpg

It is to this place I invite you. This weekend. Your local church. Just pick one and go. Or go back to the one you haven't been to since that funeral last year. Just go. And go again. And see what happens. What have you got to lose? An hour a week? You spend more time in traffic than that.