moments for courage

so i went to church again today. that's 2 weeks in a row. it's really weird to go to church. my mom's been encouraging me to considering going to church again on a regular basis, and so, i'm trying to keep a very open mind & put myself out there again. i will say i got quite a kick out of something they did at the beginning of the service... i guess they regularly tell people to take a minute, say hello to the people sitting around you - you know, introduce yourself if you see someone you dont know [its always interesting during those times right now b/c i obviously dont know anyone... but very rarely do people actually come say hello]. anyway, so today, the guy says something like 'get ready, this is gonna be uncomfortable... we want you to go say hello to someone you dont know who is sitting.on.the.other.side.of.the.room!!! and then (gasp) sit next to them all morning' [aka for everyone who comes in, sits in the exact same seat every sunday, go meet someone else & see new faces!]. i personally got a kick out of this - thought it was great. seeing as how i've sat in a different place every week i've gone to this church, and seeing as how i basically didnt know anyone, i stayed where i was at & met Betty and her niece Shadow. it was neat, though, because suddenly you looked around & there was just a completely different buzz in the air, and there were no longer empty seats between everyone [you know. that 'personal space church bubble' where there's always gotta be an empty seat between you & those strange people down the isle...]. the pastor got on stage and proceeded to explain that this whole thing was his idea... that starting about 3 weeks into his college career, he made a habit out of watching people in his classes and after 2-3 weeks, he'd sit in their seat all of a sudden just to watch their reaction! and he did this for all 4 years at college.

wasnt college great? this illustration made me laugh. and this evening, i've been thinking back to college while I've been thinking about church. it stumps me still... i realized tonight that college was like the cherry on top of one's spiritual journey (well, if one is pursuing a spiritual journey during college). for me, it meant always surrounded by your greatest friends, always able to talk [a lot. all the time] and know pretty much everything that was happening in all your friends' lives. i didnt just have a few close friends in college. there were like a good 20 people that i loved dearly. we prayed together all the time, sang & laughed and laughed more! and we went to church together. sat together. the pastor loved us - he was so thrilled to have us as part of the church. he knew us, prayed for us, supported us. while of course life went on this whole time, everyone faced challenges of one sort or another (after all, this is college & everything that goes with it), but spiritually, we had it all. really, even more than that, it was an abundance. i dont know if other people had this experience, but i look back with some seriously fond memories.

and then i start looking not quite as far back... to the years following college. and i cant help but stop and go 'what in the heck just happened?!?!' moving to a new city & no longer carrying the 'college student' title, i became just another single person in the church. the pastor didnt know me, people didnt know me... perhaps they recognized my face after a while, but i felt like a loner. it was kinda like church before college. with no roots in a church, no family members who others who know me by, even after working in the nursery 2 and a half years, i was just another face in the crowd. it sucked. BIG time. i guess that's part of the reason i gave up on church.

so going back to church now... after my 'break' of 2 years, it's kind of a scary thing. and its weird going, having no connection to anyone and, with a job where i'm here 2 days, there 3 days, completely inconsistent, i can admit that i fear that even if i start going every sunday, even if i make as big an effort as is possible to always sit by new people, introduce myself, be annoyingly talkative to people who may not be interested in meeting new people, i fear that i'll once again just be another face in the crowd. but, like i said earlier: open mind. i'm trying to keep an open mind and just maybe be open to the thought that there's someone else there that God wants me to meet because that person desperately needs a friend or someone to talk to and there's something about me that He knows would be perfectly suited for the situation. it would take some serious amounts of courage, i know that. i guess we'll see...

this morning, before church, i was listening to a pastor who i enjoy (francis chan... pastor at Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley, CA... i've mentioned him before). anyway, he gave a great illustration. made me laugh, of course. was talking about how the world's strongest man goes to his church (yes, meaning the one off those 'World's Strongest Man' competition you see on tv at 2am). he said the guy could bench-press 1100 pounds. can you even imagine?! i cant even fathom... and the guy is married. his wife - yeah, she can press 400 pounds!! a girl! that can benchpress 400 pounds. ha. yeah, pick your chin up off the ground. they've got kids.
and you could guess what he's about to say, right? but he says just imagine if their kids were these scrawny little runts of the group and how odd that would look compared to their parents! (of course, not to say there'd be anything wrong with that! just making a point of course!) the moral of the story was that it should look strange for people who believe in Jesus (who the Bible calls children of God) to be timid & afraid & unbelieving, compared to God the Father, who is all-powerful, fully loving, perfect at everything, and through the Holy Spirit, living INSIDE those who believe. and so, be courageous!

"Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” -Joshua 1:9