What difference does church make in your life, and why?

It’s a simple question, but if you are like most regular church goers it’s a question that often goes unasked and unanswered. There are all sorts of reasons that people attend church, from continuing family traditions to finding a community of support to even simple habit, and there is little doubt that participating in faith community leads to ways of being that are different from non-participation. And yet, most studies suggest that very few long time church participants actively think about church as a place of transformation and change, nor the ways that their lives are changed by being a part of a church. Churches have often become places of low expectations, and those expectations keep us from approaching everything we do with anticipation that something significant is going to happen whenever we gather as the body of Christ.

Last year a young mother was talking with me about her struggles in connecting with church. In the midst of our conversation she said, "I don’t want to be coming to a place...I want to be part of a mission." What she was saying was affirmed in a workshop I led yesterday with a bunch of youth - there is a longing to be part of something significant, to make a difference in the world.

I want to suggest that every time we gather, be it to hand out backpacks to area children or to worship on Sunday morning, something significant is taking place. We are tied in to a mission that has been moving forward for some 2000 years, and there are things happening in both the spiritual and the physical realms that lead to change and provides meaning to people in need. Being a part of a church changes us, leading us to a deeper love of God and neighbor - something that makes us very different from the Rotary Club down the street.

It is my hope and prayer that OHUMC both is, and is becoming, a place where every person that walks in the door has a sense that great things are happening, and that lives will be changed because of what we are doing at that moment in time. I invite you to be on the lookout for all that ways that God is at work, so that you can answer clearly about the difference in your life because of being a part of our church.

Oscar Wilde defined a cynic as: ‘A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.’

Last Tuesday, February 9th, I was doing my morning reading and read Psalm 40. As I finished it and marked it off, it occurred to me that 10% of 2010 is completed. 40 days...Biblically significant, yes?

Let me be perfectly clear. A church that minimizes missional giving is in serious trouble.

Last Thursday night, after watching our Kaithyn’s third-grade class musical, I hurried home. Excitedly, I put on Channel 8. Andrea Bocelli was doing his Christmas special and I didn’t want to miss a note.