go to church

Okay, so I have not been doing a good job of this at all so I’m going to start going at least once a month from now on!

my sisters are praying for me.
my mother also says go to church.
recently, tried a few time but i didn’t.
this week i will go to Onuri church for sure!!

Our usual MO was to “church-shop” finding things we didn’t like about each place we went, then settle on a place to sporadically attend, but never officially become members and never really to “support the Church with our prayers, our presence, our gifts and our service.”... as the beautiful new-member pledge goes.

Well, Sunday before last we stood before the congregation and recited the pledge, reaffirmed our faith, and received the congregation’s pledge to support us, and their blessings as they filed through and greeted us. It was beautiful.

I found a church in walking distance from my house. My husband and I are going to attend the 11 a.m. service today! I’m excited to learn more about the church, what happens there, and how a spiritual life can be good for me.

I went to church today
It rocked the casbar… it is funny that throughout my drinking days i felt that the church was something that had foresaken me. I could accept that God had forgiven my trespasses but the church as an institution had not… returning to church was hard and scarey i held my head low and eye contact was never made but they have carried me like… God would, people that i knew not and friends that i had just made. Today i was asked to be in a prayer group team and my first reaction was me? but have you seen what i have done… and my priest said “pretty much the same thing as me”... This is where God lies, not in the sin or type of sine but in the forgiveness.
Learning to let go fo all that has bound me has made me free. God has made me free. Church that is a place i want to stay, the joy i recieved was better than any high any human love or anything i have bought or plan to possess, so i learnt lessons that will have to proably be retaught to me in a few months but i learnt that there is grace and forgiveness, there is hoensty and hope and most of all there is joy in four walls with a cross on top

I’ve started going to church about 2 months ago and joined a connect group. I also started doing an introduction to christianity course at the church to learn more about christianity, my father took me to a baptist church when I was very young so I do have some knowledge. In the past year, so much has happened in my life and I truly felt that God was with me despite being a non believer at the time..it is a feeling I cannot describe unless you feel it yourself..a euphoric and comforting feeling and I said that if God helped me heal my sickness, I will follow him..and here I am alive, a second chance at life. I started going to church..and then I stopped last month..so I guess I’m not holding my end of the deal..I need to start going again, and start praying again, getting back into the real world has been great but abit exhausting sometimes with work and all.. but i don’t want to forget God’s help

I’ve been doing this! Well, at first I went regularly for a couple years but since summer 08 I stopped. Then, this thing happened, haha, and I began going again in Fall 08, off and on, I’d say October-December. THEN another thing happend. oh and these things are me breaking up with boys. hmm. So, the past two months I’ve been going. and yet. I’m single. hmmmm. some say not for long. but I say singlehood isn’t half as bad as I make it out to be. Have to enjoy it because break ups can be rough! but oh yea. church. go. yayyyyy.

Well I have been visiting a church called UBC this summer—a couple of times.

I didn’t go today because my husband has to work and my friend is out of town and I don’t want to go by myself. Last night I dreamed I went with my sister and two of my friends. They wouldn’t stop talking loudly through the whole thing and I could hear what was going on and people kept telling us to be quiet. Weird dream.

I am liking this church and maybe it will be one that I can really start getting some spiritual growth and understanding through… but I feel as though I should “shop around.”

So, go to church…I know that this is something that’s not going to happen overnight. For at least 6 or 7 years, I went to church..my whole family did. I went slightly before, all through high school, and slightly afterwards. I went, religiously, hardly ever missed a Sunday, pun intended. After just kind of phasing it out of my life, especially after moving out, I’ve been on extreme ends of the spectrum when it comes to religion, on both sides. I’ve convinced myself that there’s not even a higher power at times, though that was based on nothing but bitterness.

Anyways, after lots of thought on the subject, I came to realize that it was not God that I was upset with, but rather, it was organized religion. I don’t fit the mold of the ‘religious person’ as they’re viewed. I am incredibly liberal in many of the more ‘hot-stove’ issues, including gay marriage, abortion, alcohol and drug use, etc. That’s not to say I run around getting people pregnant and encouraging abortions, am a homosexual or a drug-addict. But, my views on the subjects go against pretty much all church views of them. That’s one snag I run into, when trying to convince myself to go, it’s not that I don’t want to go to a place of worship, it’s the fact that I fear my individual views on things like that will differ so greatly from those of the church, that I’ll be looked down upon. Add that to my intense dislike of being the ‘new guy’, that I really have a lot of mental hurdles I’ll have to overcome on this one.

I also have a very embittered viewpoint on ‘the church’. My biggest thing is, of the ones I went to while growing up, the focus seemed to be more on the church itself. Not God. It was…almost like a village, where everyone knew everyone else’s business, and felt the need to discuss it when they weren’t around. Something as simple as a food pantry, with canned goods and things for people in need was a sore subject. The new food pantry manager noticed on her first day of doing it, that numerous items were long-expired. Upon pointing it out to the pastor, the reply was to give it away anyway. Having thankfully never been so in need that I required food or money from a church, I can’t say as I know how that feels. However, my mom was, in her younger days, and hearing her account of how upsetting and hard of a thing it is to do…to literally go to someone, in one of your most down periods of life, and ask for their charity…the thought of them handing you a bunch of expired items just disgusts me. That someone could see someone else, so down on their luck that they’re unable to provide themself or their family with one of the 3 necessities of life, food, and not treat them with enough respect to give them something unexpired. I have no doubt that pastor wasn’t feeding that to his family.

So, that got rather lengthy…but it’s just one example of how my previous experience with religion has me very turned off from, not God, but church. I do want to go back…to find one that I don’t feel out of place in, and that does good deeds because they want to, not because they’re expected to. So…this is a goal that I could easily accomplish next Sunday…but it’s not going to come nearly that easy for me, or that quickly.

I have fallen off of the wagon when it comes to going to church. I will attend this Sunday though. I have to.