The church you are in is probably the church where you need to stay

The Christ said that if we can’t do anything else, just love neighbors, strangers, and enemies. If we can give a drink of water to someone we’d rather drown in it, we are Christian enough.

If this is true, what kind of church should I join?

Shouldn’t I join a church that has the kind of people in it who put my love to the test?

My wife and I think we will go back to church this year. The last time we went to church was March 2020. We had more than a year to think about how church could be different next time. We seem to talk about this every Sunday after we “watch church” on YouTube.

We talk about things we miss about our church and things we don’t miss.

We talk about things we wish our church would do better and things we wish our church would not do at all.

We talk about people at church who get on our nerves.

I confess that we talk about people we wish would just go away.

We talk about looking for a new church. Maybe we can find a church that is easier and feels more natural.

But I know better. We will find the same old people and problems in a new church. After awhile, we will say the same things about the new church that we say about the old church now.

The “new church/old church” question misses the Christ’s point: If you want the kingdom of God to come to life among you, love it to life.

Learn to love. Practice love. Work at love.

Where better to do that than in the same old church with the same old people doing the same old things? I’ve been around long enough to know that churches trying new things is the same old thing.

We can learn so much about the love of Christ in a church that puts our love to the test. What could make us more like 1 Corinthians 13 Christians than a church that gives us a million chances to be patient and kind?

Over the last year, I thought about changing to a new church.

But as my year away from church comes to an end, I can now see that what the Christ wants is for me to change how I love people in my “old” one.

Grace and peace.