in light of a post on the Na blog (http://www.newattitude.org/blog/entry.php?category=Application&id=390) here were some thoughts I had.
I didn't always "heart" my local church. I didn't even want a local church (or God, for that matter). I often say that my church found me. 4 years ago, my life was very different than it is now. It was not characterized by a love for the local church, it was characterized by a love for my own desires.
A friend of mine invited me to this place he refers to as "the dearest place on earth." He told me that it was a place where people loved you for who you were, cared for you and wanted to share something that had radically changed everything about their lives. Having grown up "in church" I wanted nothing to do with this. I laughed at his passion and zeal. I knew what this "Christian thing" was about - it was about putting up a facade and pretending you're okay. It was about an external hope combined with internal emptiness. But you can't talk of the emptiness because then it would reveal to others that the external hope is nothing more than a facade. And God forbid that others knew you had problems. No, I had "done" church before and I wanted no part of it. Despite my resistance, he invited me to church - I didn't come. He invited me again - thankfully by God's grace I came. Mostly the motivation was just to get him off my back, but God was at work behind the scenes in many ways I was unaware of. I thank God often that through that persistence, August 10th 2003 was the start of something I never could have imagined - and something much greater than I could have ever planned.
What I saw at that point was what I called the "5th graders club" - a group of people I had nothing in common with and could not relate to. However God opened my eyes over the following months and years to something more. Through consistent preaching on the Gospel (not only in sermons but also through lives), I have come to see that our commonality is not primarily in our experiences, abilities or preferences; our bond is in Christ. And that bond supercedes any differences we have. It is the ground that we walk on as we work through differences and misunderstandings. What a difference relationships built on the gospel makes! Through Christ, I have received friends much dearer than I ever could have asked for - friends that are willing to ask me the hard questions, that "step on my toes," that love me and that exemplify the sacrificial love of Christ to me daily.
Through God's grace, He opened my eyes to see this love on display and it broke me. But thankfully, He didn't leave me in a broken heap. And it wasn't judgment that broke me - it was the kindness of God that led me to repentence. I never had experienced this before - being motivated by grace not judgment. Being encouraged to change not reminded of the areas that still needed to be changed. Being discipled by others who were more aware of their own sin and need for God than my own.
Through the gospel, I'm now learning to share Christ's love to others just like me - sinful yet redeemed disciples. How humbling. What grace! That He would choose to use me and allow me to be part of His Bride! I don't just "heart" my church - I am grateful daily to God for the work He has done through His Body - for the impact it has had (and continues to have) on me - and for the small part I get to play in that Body on a weekly basis.