My Church Experience Today

I still attend church to this day – although I tend to go once every two weeks. I have defined my boundaries with this church I go to.

The Message

When it comes to the message - I never feel condemned by the message, which is rather grace oriented. I will admit that the message does tend to be something of a mixture of grace and law. Although I’m certain, they are likely to call it a “balance”. Oftentimes, we have a popular visiting speaker. But such speakers I find are often just Christian motivational speakers. I suppose this is what the office of evangelist is all about.

But I have been feeling rather disenchanted about these pep-talks for some time now, especially in recent months. I believe it coincides with the fact that I’ve been getting more into the grace message. It is rather amazing the way in which my perspective has changed on the message in my church. Messages that I once considered to be fantastic – often seem like a legalistic challenge to me or a set of platitudes.

Servant hood

I used to feel compelled to serve in church, but this was something that I did in order to prove myself, make friends and earn God’s favour and blessing. Now that I know that I’m right with God by faith in Christ – I’ve cooled-off on church routines and duties.

The church I attend has a strong emphasis on servant-hood. But the great thing is that they don’t made it into a work or a “should”. The pastor does mention serving on team from time-to-time in order to present to the congregation what they could get involved in – but I never feel coerced like I used to in some other churches. I would say that the great eagerness for people to get involved in serving in this church, is purely because of love.

Nevertheless, because of the great emphasis on servant-hood in the church, it is difficult to get away from the subject. Quite often, a lot of people that you know in this church, perhaps most of them, are involved in serving in one team or another. Therefore, it does seem to be difficult to avoid a sense of guilt sometimes if you are not participating in one way or another. But perhaps that is the test: to attend the church, define your boundaries, and then stick to it. If God does not call you to serve in the church – you should be happy with that and not see it as a sign that you are a bad Christian or that you will not be “used” by God in some way.

Fellowship

I meet up with a group of people in church who I call friends. I am privileged to go to a church which is truly blessed when it comes to worship. It is rather like a Christian rock-concert every Sunday!

Together with my Christian friends we usually go to lunch after the service. I get invited to go to events during the week with these people (as well as via church announcements) – either private events or associated with the church, such as ten-pin bowling. But most of the time, I don’t find peace about such things, as if it is simply not for me. Don’t get me wrong – I like these people. But I believe that God will let you know by His love, the boundaries of every relationship that we have. So I usually end-up declining such offers. Ever since I’ve held to my integrity with the church and what I feel comfortable doing or not doing – I feel so much better about it all.

I often used to feel guilty about such things, as if it was my duty as a member of the church to engage in such activities. The church that I go to at the moment, gives a heavy emphasis on fellowshipping. So I would also consider that there was something wrong with me: perhaps I did not find the love to fellowship as I should, because I’m not serious enough about God, or because there was hidden sin in my life or whatever. But such considerations simply get a person into morbid introspection and self-condemnation.

Now I have the boldness and integrity to say “no” to things in the church. I define my boundaries according to love, not according to rules and logic – and I stick to those boundaries.

I suppose in the past I would have forced myself to go to church events – for two reasons I believe: to fit in with the crowd and just in case I missed something good – something life-changing. But in my experience, such life-changing events never seem to occur at these corporate church programs.

The Internet Church

It is amazing how God has used the internet to connect grace-believing Christians from all over the world, to encourage each other and learn about the true Gospel of Christ.

When I created an account on Facebook, I thought it would be just an opportunity to keep in touch will old work colleagues and the like. I had no idea that I would be using it to meet some wonderful Christians who were radical about God’s grace. Some of these people do not go to a church because they cannot tolerate the religious legalism and the abuses that go on in some churches. I feel that I have a gift to write and I use this on the various discussion boards on the internet.

I suppose it is through these social networking sites that I am able to make my church experience more varied and more complete.

I also use the internet to get most of my Christian teaching. Thankfully, a lot of this teaching is free. I am currently in the process of getting rid of most of my Christian books, as they take up much needed space and I feel that I have not benefited much from them (other than to bring me out of Word of Faith and into the message of grace).

I mostly listen to the radical grace message nowadays. You can refer to the “Favourite Websites” on the sidebar of my blog and you can also refer to the Grace Preachers List for links to some great resources.