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When you walk into a church, what should you expect?
If you expect religious services, you will only have to look with getting your children to have their sacraments, burials for your aged parents and Sunday worship for the very devout.
If you expect to only hear a call to faith and conversion you will only show up to listen and accept the Gospel message, and then you can go home. Your personal expectations will shape what kind of response you will give to the ministry/leadership of the Church.
Do not assume that everyone (beginning with your own adult children) share the same understanding of the place of the Church community within our lives.
The Church is first and foremost a community of disciples of Jesus Christ. These are the people who have heard the call of Jesus to be one of his own, to share in the life and mission of the Son of God. Immediately, we can see that this faith community is living in relationship with the very Son of God. These are people who are moved and energized by the Holy Spirit.
These are not people who do religious things. These are people who live in friendship with Jesus. We are sent to live out of our friendship with Jesus Christ.
These are not perfect people and they certainly are not ready-made saints. They have many faults and sinful attitudes. They are a long way from being perfect. And this is one of the most difficult things about belonging to the Church: they are not saints and often times they are a long way off the holiness mark.
We must always picture in our mind that these are people on pilgrimage. They are being moved toward that goal of living in harmony with Jesus Christ; but they are willing to undergo change and conversion, as they are moved by the Holy Spirit.
We cannot be a Christian person on our own. Rugged individualism (doing it my way) is just the opposite of what it means to follow Jesus Christ. If we do not live and participate in the life of the Christiam community, we often will not do very much else. Christianity is a community of disciples, moving toward the goal of life in its fullness with and in Jesus Christ. We need each other to survive as disciples. We need each other to nourish and support the faith we have been gifted with in this time and place.
When we pray each Sunday that we believe in the “holy, catholic church” we are saying that we believe the Holy Spirit is living, moving and working among this group of less than perfect people. The Holy Spirit is working to change these sinners into saints (i.e., people filled with the love and compassion of God). We are being shaped into becoming the very heart and face of the Son of God.
But first, always be rooted in the Holy Spirit and what the power of the Spirit is doing among us: sinful and imperfect tough we are.
This is a wonderful journey and it all is the work of the life and spirit of God among us.