I know well what I am fleeing from but not what I am in search of.
~Michel de Montaigne
After a year of attempts to return and many recent invites, I'm finally doing it - I'm going to a church. When I was a kid, church was extremely important to me. I would say it was my place to escape, but I don't think that's what it was for me. I has always been a natural desire in me to be close to God. If it is possible to lose my salvation, mine was definitely lost. Actually, it wasn't lost, it was thrown away, something unwanted.
You see, my most vivid memories of strong Christians were definitely the worst examples. The father who raised me seemed like a strong Christian in most of his actions but he was an alcoholic drug addict, my "real" father was very respected in our church and he was even worse than my first father. In so many years, I have been surrounded by people who wore the Christian mask well in public, but were all reflections of the worst parts of society. So, for several years, I rejected what my heart knew. I fought God tooth and nail - arguing with him on a regular basis. Telling him that I didn't believe in Him, didn't think he was a savior for me. It took several years for me to realize that I was mad at the wrong person. I blamed God for the people who were claiming to be His followers. It was a revelation that just suddenly came to me in my usual place of speaking to God - my car. Even so, after asking God to forgive me, begging Him to take me back, I was still scared of calling myself a Christian, scared of going back to church. I didn't want to associate myself with "those" people - the ones in mask. I didn't think I needed fellowship, I would just be the Christian I thought God wanted me to be. More time goes by and I finally decide to go to church. I wanted to make sure the church wasn't full of close minded people, hypocrites and sycophants, so I chose the wrong church - definitely not a true Christian church. After my husband left and a year of spending most of my free time at my local coffee shop (beats a bar), I finally decided to visit a local church that I was invited to. It was my 4th invite to a church, so I figured that God was trying to tell me that I needed to go. Hesitant to go to a denominational church, as those must be full of the mask wearers, I chose to go to Sovereign King Church. I had met Gordon in the coffee shop and he seemed very kind, relaxed and non-traditional. He runs everyday and still listens to heavy metal, so his church must be ultra cool and radical. So, after my first visit, I was left confused. Not only was this sermon what I would consider conservative or traditional, pretty much feeling like a bible class and not like Joel Osteen, but it was not non-denominational. I felt tricked - not that Gordon every said it was non-denominational. It was Presbyterian - not only Presbyterian, but PCA, which is more conservative than the PCUSA. So, what can I really say other than after going for six months or so, I love it. It's a church that from day one I felt welcomed and loved. I don't know if I would call myself a Presbyterian yet, but for now I am happily sucked in.
