Give church another chance!

You may be someone who likes to get up on Sunday mornings and catch the early football games, or go off to a morning round of golf, or maybe just sleep in a little bit later and read the Sunday paper over your cup of coffee. Perhaps you’ve watched your neighbors drive off to church, and you’ve wondered, “Why would anybody want to get up early on a Sunday morning and go to church?”

For most of us, it’s because we’ve found something exciting and even unexpected. We were expecting to find that God was mad at us and waiting to punish us. To the contrary, we found that the Creator of the universe loves us and wants to have a relationship with us. He even showed His love by giving His Son, Jesus Christ.

Sometimes I think that people who don’t go to church have this opinion about those of us who do, that we think we’re better than you, that we’ve got it all together and we’re looking down on you. I’m sorry if you’ve felt that, but that’s not what we’re all about. We don’t see ourselves as superior to you, but as your servants. We’re here to help you. I know we don’t always do a really good job at it. You can look at us and see our shortcomings and mistakes that we make. We don’t claim to be perfect. We don’t claim to have our life all together.

What we are excited about is that we’ve found Someone – or rather He’s found us – who loves us and is there for us to help change us. And we know that He loves you too. He’s the only One who can fill the emptiness, the vacuum and the void in our life, the only One who can give our lives meaning and purpose.

That’s why I’m inviting you to come to church this Sunday. Maybe you’ve gone to church before and for some reason you were turned off, and you didn’t go back. Maybe you were even hurt in church, and for that I’m sorry. I’m asking you to give us another chance.

Just ask God to show you which church to attend this Sunday. I know that wherever He leads you, there will be people who are going to welcome you. So don’t wait until your life is all together. Just come!