Why I go to church

 

PeopleCrossOn the way to church last Sunday, I saw that a friend of mine had checked in on Facebook at a Buddhist temple near her home. She had not shared a status remark, only choosing an icon that indicated she was “feeling peaceful”.

This person was not raised Buddhist. In fact, she was raised in a Christian culture but had left religion some time ago. I wondered… was she looking for God again and just happened to end up in that temple? Or did she intentionally go there seeking the peace about which she posted?  I looked forward to our visit next month so we could talk about it over a meal.

But I couldn’t get it out of my mind as I pulled in to the parking lot of my own beloved place of worship.

I arrived a little late. The music had already started as I settled in to my seat and soon, the pastor began to speak. He’s an excellent teacher and normally, I don’t want to miss a word, a nuance, a pearl.

But I was distracted as I thought again about my friend who was sitting in that Buddhist temple at precisely that same moment. I wanted to understand how our experiences might be similar or how they might be different.  I started asking myself why do I go to church on Sunday mornings? Was I there, like my friend, to feel peaceful? or was there something else?

(As an aside, while peace is often found at church, sometimes it just isn’t because well, there are people there. If feeling peaceful is the main reason I go, perhaps I could spare myself the effort and just go chill on the bluff over the ocean near my house by myself. Now THAT would be peaceful.  A friend of mine once joked “church would be so great if it weren’t for all those people”.  While we might laugh at that, if we were totally honest, we might agree. People at church sometimes just bug! Sometimes they might even snub us.  And those in leadership might even fail us.  We can get hurt and jaded and as a result, we might stop going.  I’ve sure had my share of experiences along these lines and understand the initial emotions. But I digress.)

church1

SO… why DO I go to church?

I know I don’t go because I think I have to or because it suddenly makes me more spiritual or because I believe it is the only place where God is found. I don’t go because I think I’m better than you; in fact, I go to church because I’m a mess, because I can sometimes lose my way and forget who I am.

I go to listen to a guy I trust share from the Bible about Christ’s character and His plan and how I get to participate in it despite how flawed I am.

I go because I need community.  My grandfather used to say “if you want to become a better tennis player, than play with someone who is better than you.” I need to regularly sharpen and deepen my faith by regularly rubbing up against others who live in the way I claim to believe because frankly, sometimes my blade just gets dull.

I go to church to expose myself to even more opportunities to serve. To serve when it doesn’t fit into the schedule or when it’s unglamorous or when it’s awkward or when it costs something is service like none other. I can get pretty insular which can sometimes lead to depression and when I give or serve, I swear, it snaps me right out of it. I can serve in many places in my city and I can send a check to an NGO I trust, but to serve where you will see those people again and again… well, it’s like a shot of Vitamin B.

I go to be reminded that I’m a daughter of royalty and don’t need to be afraid of terrorism or any other earthly insecurity.

But mostly, I go to church because I’m grateful.  I can’t explain to you, but even after all these years, the idea that God would still want to hang out with broken and flawed me still surprises me.  So I go.

I go to join my spiritual family in showing appreciation for, honor and reverence and homage to Jesus… the One I love, trust, and to Whom I owe my life.

And oh yeah… we SING!

 

“As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

Proverbs 27:17

“Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

Colossians 3:16

In the soup

After 49 years, I found my thing.

Growing up and living at the ocean, I have body surfed, skin dived, kayaked, sailed, and just about any and everything else having to do with the big blue.  But it wasn’t until 4 years ago that I and that great expanse became one and since then, it’s all been about the board.

The great thing about stand-up paddle boarding is your vantage point.  As you glide high above the surface of the water you are afforded great views of what’s under the surface as well as what’s out in front of you.  I’ve paddled on my Takayama Ali’i II Wolf bought for me on Mission Bay, Trinity Lake, Tahoe,  and all over the Sea of Cortez.  But it doesn’t matter where I’m paddling; as long as I’m on the water, I’m a happy girl.  I’ve seen sharks beneath me, have been followed by sea lions, and have chased dolphins.  Lola loves it too and in carrying her extra 90 pounds, my overall balance has gotten strong.

I started paddling with my pal Holly off the Lawrence Street beach on the backside of Shelter Island.  Like me, she’s fearless, doesn’t care if it’s raining or sunny, and is just as happy going out on a windy day when there’s chop as she is to go out on morning glass.  We even like it when a big wake from a boat hits us because it forces us to get creative in how we’re going to stay upright as we know from experience that even the smallest stirring of the water can throw you in if you’re not on the alert.  As we’ve raced and challenged each other, our power has increased and our balance has gotten rock solid and now, we rarely even get wet.  Secretly, I think we’re a little puffed up about that.

Not long ago though, Holly and I were paddling hard out in the harbor and a speedboat came up from behind, passing us way over to the right.  We accounted for his wake, waved and kept on paddling and talking.  The boat quickly went out of view but a few minutes later, remnants of its wake touched us from behind and bam, I was suddenly overboard.  It was the smallest of ripples but it knocked me over with the strength of a cresting wave.  Major bummer too, as I was fully clothed.

As I pulled my soaking wet, red-faced self back on to my board it occurred to me that in that moment, I was a living metaphor.  I was struck that it’s not the big stuff that most typically tosses me on my butt; no, it’s the little things that throw me off balance and put me into the soup.

Funny how we can flip out when we forget our wallet, lose our keys, or hear we’ve been criticized by a coworker we barely know.  We practically alert the media when our cell phone company messes up our account, we ding our fresh pedicure, a friend cancels at the last minute, our flight’s been delayed, or discover that our bank account is overdrawn.  I’m convinced it’s not the elephants in the living room that typically get us… it’s the ants in the kitchen!

I need to not be a drama mama over little things that ultimately don’t matter.  As Richard Carlson so aptly puts it in his book title of the same name, Don’t sweat the small stuff and (by the way)– it’s all small stuff.  For God’s sake, there are way bigger things to be concerned about.  I want to be consistent and surrendered to the Power that is greater than I, even in little matters.  If I am going to call myself a Christian, then for crying out loud, I’d better live more like I believe it… even with small things.   People watch how we handle what life doles out, large or small, and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to be derailed, uprooted, or thrown overboard by things we’ll forget about by Tuesday.  I, for one, want to handle life with more consistency and grace, aided by the power of my faith and the strength of my tribe, no matter the tiny little ripples that might hit from behind.

“Whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with big things.”
Luke 16:10a ETRV

 

 

Sylvia Lange is a Christian women’s speaker from Southern California.

Read Sylvia’s other posts, and LIKE her on Facebook!

Keep your eye on the gate

There is so much to say today, yet I struggle to find the words.  Odd, really, because first of all, I am rarely at a loss for words and besides, there are so many questions and thoughts and feelings swirling inside of me, refusing to be buttoned up in a tidy place.  But here I sit.

Today a close group of us are thinking  about how a special someone- a living, breathing soul, who once had children and house plants and a brother and friendships, a devoted husband, hobbies and favorite songs- can be here one minute, with opinions and agendas and things to say, with life and blood pulsing through her body… and then in the next minute while the rest of us are fighting traffic, blow-drying our hair, standing in line or watching Seinfeld, be just plain gone from this earth. Oh sure, we are certain my beautiful aunt’s new home is with God because of choices she made while she was here but man, we will  miss her while we are all still here fighting traffic, blow drying our hair, standing in line and watching Seinfeld.

After sitting with her the other day, just hours before she moved from earth and then getting the text from my cousin later that evening that she had left, I recounted all the things that made this sassy, edgy woman iconic in my mind. How she poured her 50-year-old body into a bikini to catch some waves, not caring what anyone thought.  How my grandmother died with no bedsores on her body because my aunt painstakingly cared for her in her last days in a hospital bed in the middle of her living room.  How this beach girl took on New York later in life as she managed the life and career of a Broadway songwriting icon.  And how she taught me that, like the words of a song I recorded on my first album, when it’s all said and done, grace is what mattered to determine my destiny, not works.

Her passing this week emphasized this as I pondered the story she’d lived.  Like most, hers was a day in and day out culmination of tasks, some big and important, but most, mundane, uneventful and quotidian.  But the more I think about it, those small things just may matter at least as much, if not more than the big stuff because those seemingly insignificant tasks add up- unseen, mostly- but I believe our everyday choices bleed together and before we know it, our story has been written.

When the day comes when those I love lay my body to rest, I want my story to have mattered.  I want the people in my life and those who might’ve been watching it to be able to say like the brilliant Shelley Pimentel did “… to be glad they existed on the page with me. (I want them) To feel loved. Fully. Leaps and bounds above even the kind of love we pay boatloads of money to find on the big screen. I want people to feel invested in and cared for and known and like their stories matter, matter a lot, to me too. And I want people, through my story, to somehow see God. To see Him moving and breathing and re-creating inside me. And to be drawn to experience the same.”

And so Auntie, as we say farewell to you today just above the beach you loved so much, I want you to know you mattered.  A whole lot.

And keep your eye on the gate… we’ll be there soon.

 

 

God Himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” And the One sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!”

Revelation 21:3b-5a NLT

 

 

Sylvia Lange is a Christian women’s speaker who lives in Southern California.

Read Sylvia’s other posts, and LIKE her on Facebook!

The Most Interesting Man In The World

I always dreamed I’d marry someone like my father. He was exciting, daring, curious, charismatic, and not afraid of anything. I was convinced he walked on water and was pretty sure there was no one out there who could hold a candle to him.

And then came Wolf.

One evening early in our marriage on a flight home from Atlanta I woke up from a nap midway through the trip and noticed him hard at work on a yellow pad. I leaned over to see what he was doing and he hunched over the page, shielding it from my eyes. Now, too intrigued even to respect the privacy of my new husband I begged to see what he was doing. After repeated attempts to peel his fingers off the pad, he finally relented and bashfully showed me what he’d been working on.

Before continuing, it’s probably only fair to tell you that I married “The Most Interesting Man in the World”. No, I mean THE GUY. Both sides of this guy’s brain fire on all cylinders as he goes through life as a business owner, a competitive athlete, chef, adventurer, sculptor, and so many other things. Our daughter says he’s the kind of guy you want to be with when you’re in a real jam because he will just simply get you out of it.

His appetite for adventure and travel were two things that particularly attracted me from the gate. Like my dad, there seemed to be no end to what he’d done or would do. Before we met, this Indiana Jones had experienced a lot of unusual things, exposing himself to a side of life most only see on a beer commercial or read about in a magazine. He had stared down the barrel of an Afghani nomad’s rifle in Band-e-Amir over a fifty cent dispute on his horse. He had paddled with a pod of dolphins a thousand strong while kayaking off Espiritu Santu. He photographed rhinos in the Brahmaputra from the back of an elephant. He once circumvented the entire shoreline of the largest lake in Bali, water skiing so long his fingers couldn’t hold a pen the next day to sign his name. Out of respect for the atoll’s custom, he once ate the heart of a tuna given to him by a Tuamotoan woman while it was still beating. He made mango crepes while 30-foot waves crashed over the bow of the sailboat on which he and his buddies crossed the Atlantic Ocean. He had eaten thousand year old eggs in China, crickets in India, and salamanders in Hong Kong.

But I digress. Back to the yellow pad.

At the top he had written “Things To Do Before I Die”. It started off with
1. Explore Patagonia.
2. Kayak around the islands on the Sea of Cortez.

Okay. Sounds like him. He continued:

3. Sleep on the crater floor at Uhuru Peak.
4. Take Sylvia down the Baja peninsula in the van.
5. Be a greeter at my church.

Wait… what?

The list went on:
6. Enter the Molokai Challenge.
7. Build a house for someone who doesn’t have one.

Whoa, whoa… what was that last thing?

Buried in a list of things typically featured in outdoor magazines were two little pearls. Easy to miss, but oh, so telling. Those two pedestrian items were placed right alongside things on which adventure movies are made but they told me more about the soul of this man than anything I read that night.

Since that day some of these things have been done (I highly recommend the drive down Baja, by the way; EPIC).

The economy has tightened though and we are using our scarce dollars in other ways, suspending his quest to finish the list for now.  But his unquenchable zest to live life to the fullest hasn’t been snuffed out and besides, he’s begun to make a new list:

1. Start every morning in the Word.
2. Adopt an older adult with no kids of her own.
3. Pray my daughter will want nothing more or less than what God wants for her life.

Although initially attracted to his daring spirit, it is now his gentleness, generous heart, and commitment to God that draws me to him the most. Today, I think he’s way more interesting than ‘The Most Interesting Man In the World”!

So what’s the point of going on and on about Wolf? None really. I just like to talk about him.

But I do think we all need our very own bucket list. Life’s so short, why not dream BIG and commit ink to goals that will supercharge the few years we have on this planet? Our lists shouldn’t only include things that require money we don’t have or personality traits we don’t possess. What would happen if our list reflected a change in the definition of what interesting is? What if our list demonstrated a focused effort to pour into the lives of others? Bob Goff says it simply: “Love does“. To be the mom who raises kids who know they are loved, the teen who spends free time with seniors who have no one else, the business professional who pushes a competitor forward, the family who makes room for a foster child, the secretary who buys a bag of groceries for the co-worker who is struggling, the unemployed person who sponsors a 3rd world child, the busy dad who takes an 15 extra minutes to mow the difficult neighbor’s lawn, the single guy who volunteers a Sunday a month in the nursery… these are the places where character lives.

So do tell… what’s on your bucket list?

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
Galatians 5:22-23

 

 

Sylvia Lange is a Christian women’s speaker who lives in Southern California.

Read Sylvia’s other posts, and LIKE her on Facebook!