First Baptist Church of Herndon

What a tease!

Linda Soller | Mar 17, 2014

Excuse me if I whine for a minute, it’s just that we had a taste of spring recently and then it was gone as fast as it came. One day we literally went from sixty degrees in the morning to the low thirties with a howling wind by early evening. I mean, really, that just doesn’t seem right. Nature offered us just enough spring to make us want more, what a tease!

During the Easter season many people decide to visit or start attending church again. Church can be a bit like nature in the spring. You go visit a church and everyone seems friendly, you enjoy the music, and the sermon is pretty interesting. So a week passes, you think it wasn’t so bad, and you go back. When you get there the next time you don’t recognize the faces, the people you meet don’t seem quite as friendly, the music is sort of slow and sad, and you’ve certainly heard better sermons. You wonder if that first Sunday visit was just a tease, not the real church. Now you have a decision, and one week to make it. Will you go back?

In the case of nature you are given no choice. It is what it is. You get up each day and if you want to go outside you take what you get. For most of us that means we adjust our wardrobe choices, perhaps rethink our planned activities, and meet nature half way. For others nature’s offering may be used as an excuse to do nothing and stay inside. No matter what we do, we understand that the next day may be different yet again, and we will have to deal with it. You can whine about it like I did at the start of this blog, but you accept the situation for what it is. A new season will eventually come, just not on your schedule.

Finding a church deserves the same consideration. You can’t expect a church to be exactly the same every Sunday. Are you the same every day? If someone met you on your best day and then saw you again when you had a cold, a lousy day at work, and just got out of horrific traffic, wouldn’t you hope they would give you the benefit of the doubt and not toss you aside as a tease? A church is a group of people, it’s dynamic. Can you really make up your mind with just one or two visits? Maybe you can decide important things on first impressions, but I can’t.  I might reject a TV show on a first impression, but nothing as important as where I go to church or more importantly if I go to church.

There is another way that church is like nature. While everyday and every church may not be your cup of tea, there is a church and there will be days that make you happy. You just need to give them a chance. I’ve decided I can be patient a bit longer for spring to arrive and stay. I wish it would come sooner rather than later, but I’m happy knowing it’ll come eventually. I’m lucky in that I’ve found a church that makes me happy, and my prayer for you is that you will find one too, sooner rather than later.

Have a great week!  :o)   Linda