The Truth About My Journey

I've experienced God deeply in a room full of people passionately worshipping to music -- it usually happens many minutes into the experience. I've experienced God deeply through liturgy as well, but (sadly) usually only in a room by myself, and usually only many minutes into the experience. And both only occasionally. It can't be planned.

But . . . I don't have that experience every Sunday just because that's when the band starts singing. I don't have that experience every Sunday just because that's when the leader begins the liturgy.

I've connected with God mysteriously (maybe had a spiritual experience?) only a few times in my life:

• once in the back of a pickup truck in Honduras, reflecting on a week of service there
• at a CIY worship gathering at a small college in northern Indiana (where I was there supposedly to be the leader of a group of high schoolers)
• once lying on my back, staring upwards, circled with close friends, in a sanctuary in the middle of nowhere in New Mexico
• several times in the midst of a long worship set, or an intense prayer time, at a gathering or at a retreat, or a national meeting of simple church leaders

Each time was unplanned, accidental, and most important to my spiritual journey.

(Of course, this journey isn't just about experiencing God -- whatever that means anyway -- but it partially about that.)

I could go to a church that worships to great music, or prays intensely, every Sunday hoping to get these deep connections. Right now I don't.

I could go to a church that shares the liturgy together in a meaningful way every Sunday hoping to get these deep connections. Right now I don't.

I long for a small community of people who want to meet often to seek God in these ways. I don't have those people right now. Even if I did, and even if we met regularly seeking it, we would (probably) not find it most of the times we met. At least that's what I suspect.

So I feel free to worship on any Sunday at (almost) any evangelical, charismatic, Roman Catholic, or mainline church.

But I also feel free to gather with Rebekah, Tori, & Lucas in my home to do the same. We often do that, and we pray God will send others if/when/how He wishes.

I also feel free to hide away in solitude and seek Him as well, knowing that mysteriously I'm still united with the church universal as I do so. And in some ways, since I'm (we're) so broken and incomplete, that those times are sometimes more meaningful than the forced spiritual meetings held each week in buildings all around me.

We are the church. We must struggle to flesh out what that means and quit pretending that the church is a time and a place and a program. Though sometimes the time and place and program become every bit the church. But the journey causes us to stumble upon the real thing because it is the journey, not because of the time and place and program.