Church Family is Worth Our Commitment

Five Minute Friday - The prompt for last Friday was Join and I am joining later that usual.

Every Wednesday, A Holy Experience hosts a community link up and last week's post topic was The Practice of Relationship.

I am sad to admit that though I thought of myself as an active member of my church, teaching or attending Sunday school, helping out where I could on Sunday morning, even hosting our church’s home group, I had not really joined the family.  Oh, I was a member of the larger family of God, but I had not become a part of my church family.

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Recently a sister in Christ from my church and I were talking about the differences between our generation and that of our parents.  What she said has stayed on my mind.  

“We are different from our parents generation because for them, church was more than just another activity in their lives; church was their family.  It was a priority.  It was the center of their social life.”

Agreeing with her was easy because this is something the Lord has been showing me personally, but having her say it like that, was another message from God about church commitment.  I have a family that I am joined to.  I have a church that needs me to invest even in the areas I might feel like I don’t have time for.  I need to make my church family a priority in the same way my parents did.  

It is easy to be sucked into the new mentality that life is one activity after another, and the one that sounds best at the time gets my vote.  My church is worth my commitment, my love, and my time. 

Stop!  Five minutes up.

More than a Sunday and Wednesday activity, church is about relationships as is the Christian Faith.  It's about your relationship with God through Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.  That is where the first commandment comes in - Love the Lord your God with your whole, heart, soul, mind, and might.  

Jesus also gave the second great commandment - love your neighbor as yourself. That begins with the church family, first and foremost our own local church, warts and all.  And certainly I can say with Paul, that I am chief among those who have warts.  Praise God that He doesn't give up on us, but He keeps teaching and refining.