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What has been your past experience in local church attendance? Explain the positive and the negative.
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I used to be involved in my local church as my children grew up. Bible study, choir, social ministry, evangelism, both, going out and on the internet. Often I didn’t do this with a light heart but felt pressure and anxiety. Now that I’m older and retired I finally feel free without strained obligations.
I now live in my daughter’s family and also visit for longer periods in another state my other daughters. There I help with the food bank. Here I haven’t found anything yet, except in the school season we also supply needy high schoolers with extra food and clothes. The sermons and music in this church is not pleasant to me. I’m also hard of hearing and even with hearing aids I have a hard time understanding and processing the words with their southern accent, myself having a German accent. -
Positive. Treated extremely well. Examples of how to live like Jesus. Biblical foundation and teaching. Needs met.
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I have had primarily positive experiences with church attendance and the resulting positive impact it has had in my life.
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Many churches I have attended have been incredibly positive experiences, however, there have been a few where the overall experience was rather unfortunate. In my experience, things like the size of the building, location, number of campuses, number of services, number of members, etc. have been non-factors. The biggest variable in church experience is leadership.
The best church experiences have been welcoming, theologically sound, Bible-centric, and invite more opportunities for service and fellowship beyond Sunday mornings. The leadership empowers the congregation and leaves room for the Holy Spirit to work.
The worst church experiences have been politically charged sermons with flawed theology to reinforce a political opinion, money driven, are incredibly (if not only) Sunday-centric, and make the building itself and/or the pastor the focal point of the church. Leadership a these churches tend to be more about seizing control and less transparent.
What’s interesting is, where I live, we have BOTH of these types of churches within just a few blocks of each other.
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I have attended the same church for many years and served in the same ministry all that time. It has been a blessing to me and I have grown as a Christian. Now things are changing and I trying to allow the Holy Spirit to lead me to where I am needed. It is an adjustment but I believe I can still be of service somewhere in my church.