239. The Church

Another obvious thing that I love and have yet to write about is church. So much of my life has been organized by church because I have always enjoyed attending. There’s so much that I have learned about my own faith in church, besides the obvious fact that it has completely shaped my faith. It’s true that I don’t always fall in line with what others at my local congregations have chosen as dogma, but I have never placed myself in a congregation that fully goes against my thinking. I have always had room to believe and express my own opinions within my Christian faith. My faith is in God and the church has helped guide me in that faith but it is made up of human beings and we aren’t always the most reliable. So I don’t rest my faith in the church.

But the Christian church is the cultural shape by which our society in the west is structured. We have Christmas in the winter and Easter in the spring and even the most secular organizations recognize that structure either through respect or habit. And those of us who truly practice the faith, we go to services on Sunday. Maybe even other days in the week. So much so that our lives are structured around church and work.

Of course, for me the church is also the place where I have made hundreds of friends and committed myself to helping people. It has also committed me to the belief that no matter how bad things might seem there is something bigger than all of it in charge of making the things the way He wants them and I don’t need to worry. While I certainly haven’t put my faith in the church as an institution, I have put my faith in the God that it has pointed me to and I have dedicated my life to serving that God. Everything about the Christian church has shaped the person I am, even as, at times, I watch in dismay its hypocrisy. I still believe in the redemption and forgiveness of our God and I know that is fully extended to His church so I will continue to work toward its redemption. We’re all products of dysfunction and sin but that’s who we are, now we have to work to fix that. I love the church.