Only Here

I love the Church--the universal big C Church and the itty bitty local congregation. I believe it's holy community. I believe it is transforming.

And here's why.

This weekend I watched a young man, about sixteen, follow a man in his 80s to his car. The elderly man now needs a walker, is not as steady as he used to be, and the young man didn't want him to fall. Their relationship is beautiful, filled with love for one another. And no, they're not grandfather and grandson; they know each other because they worship together.

This weekend, one of the joys shared was a couple celebrating 62 years of marriage. And yes, the couple was celebrating. They are wonderfully, joyfully married to each other, continuing to honor the covenant they began so many years ago. 

This weekend, two young men stood before the congregation to be prayed over and blessed by all the congregation. Both graduated high school this year and will soon be headed to college. Their families are proud and celebrating, of course, but so is the woman who taught the kids in Sunday school and dreaded the questions she might get. An intellectually and spiritually curious 10 year old is a blessing and a curse. Celebrating with them are the other kids they've worshipped with and gone to camp with. The littlest kids looked in awe, wondering what could be so important that these teenagers stood in front of the congregation.

And that was just this weekend. On other weekends, who knows what might happen. Still, so often, I say, "Only here." 

Only in church will things like this happen. In a culture that puts olds folks in retirement communities and kids in school, where else will the two meet? Outside of biological family that might be scattered in all sorts of directions, where else? In a culture that is fighting about marriage, we too rarely see the lived example that has little to do with pieces of paper. I say, again, "Only here." Only in the holy, beautiful thing that is church.

It's an embodied, grounding experience like no other. If I chose to leave it, I have no clue where I might find a community that stretches and pulls me in such amazing ways. And for this I say again, thanks be to God!