My family and I have been attending a non-denominational church for about two years now. When we moved to our new home, which was about 25 miles from our previous one, we decided we might consider joining a different church as well. I had been very involved in my last church almost to the point of burn out, and the struggles I watched between some of the parishioners was rather heart wrenching at times. My Mom has always told me that evil strikes the hardest in the church, and that is so often true. Where better to strike than at the heart of God.
We visited a couple churches in the area, and just didn't really feel at home in any of them until my son's friend at his new school invited us to attend his church. One morning we decided to take him up on it, and from the second we walked in the door, we knew that it was the place for us. I'm not quite sure what it was about the place, but we felt very comfortable there.
The music is very contemporary, which is a nice change for us, and the weekly message is always applicable to our everyday lives. I guess the word I'm looking for to describe my church is "authentic". I don't feel like I'm just showing up on Sunday and wanting to hurry up and get it over with. The message I'm getting each Sunday really helps me each week as I participate in the world outside the doors of the church. I feel like I'm charging my batteries at the beginning of each week. As the world and all the crap that goes along with everyday life seems to wear me down, Sundays seem to charge me back up again.
I just noticed that our church's website posts the message each week, so I thought I'd link to it so that if anyone is interested, they could listen to it as well. I know some of my readers are Christians, so you might enjoy listening in on something a bit different than your own services. And, no doubt a few atheists might want to know what that crazy soccer Mom is indoctrinating her children with. I might start posting them on Sundays every once in a while.
I've yet to join any groups or activities at our new church because I have a tendency to get involved in too many once I get my feet wet. I just want to sit back for a while without diving in and taking on too much like I did at my previous church. But, my boys both attend Wednesday night midweek classes and really enjoy them.
Here is the link to the audio of Sunday's message. You just go to the right of the page to the green box and click on the 1/20/2008 message: Life Rules: Time is Irreplaceable. Enjoy...
[edited: 1/23 several serious typos]
