What is Church?

It's 2010, a new year has rolled in once again. I've been struggling to get my thoughts organized enough to put them down.

I guess I'll start with what's been happening over my break since I last wrote and go from there.
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday of this week helping out at my church. I really enjoyed being down there and I'm very thankful that my pastor gave me the opportunity to serve. It was very eye-opening to see what goes on in a church not on Sundays. I've never had a personal relationship with a pastor before. Other people who've always been in churches where they know the pastor personally probably don't understand what's like to be in a church where you don't (which has been my experience up till now). Pastor Tony and his wife Pastor Jody know my name! and I've had conversations with them! I just think that's the coolest, nicest thing ever.

At this point in time I'm not really sure how all these experiences that I've been having with God and his church are going to play into my calling. I don't necessarily feel called to go into full time ministry at this pointing time, but then again I don't dislike the idea either. I feel like God has been showing me a lot of different things recently, about the nature of life, people and the church for a reason (well everything is for a reason, but you know what I mean).

One of the things I've been studying and looking into lately is the nature of church. What is church? What kind of got my started on this little quest for knowledge was one of my friends talking about faithful vs. non-faithful congregations. I had no idea what he was talking about. I thought you either believed in the bible or you didn't. I also thought that the main difference and dispute between denominations was whether you should have communion every Sunday or not, or if it's okay to have drums in the worship service.

But, apparently, there's a lot more to the picture then that. But, the conclusion that I've drawn currently is that the church is a community above all else. It's a community of people with the common goal in life of bringing glory to our creator. I'm still working on the other details. I'll uptdate you if I figure anything else out.

So as I've been studying theology I've been trying to figure out if there is a denomination that I agree with. Currently I don't claim to be anything other then a Christian. I do not want to attach a denomination to that until I'm sure I agree with everything that that church preaches and only if I feel called by God to join that church. The reason I want to figure out exactly what I believe in regards to theology is so that when it comes time for me to get married (If that's part of God's plan for my life) I won't end up marrying someone whose theologically incompatible with me. This is important to avoid because if we have children we will end up giving our kids a mixed message about the gospel.

Us college kids are in a very unique situation in regards to church. Most of us don't belong to churches and find it difficult to become involved in one. For me and my friends we get most of our "church" (that is fellowship, accountability and growth) from our christian ministry groups on campus. I've been incredibly blessed this semester by the sisters and brothers in Christ I've developed on campus. We've had lots of conversations on exactly how and how much we should be involved in a traditional church during these years of in-betweennes. So far we've concluded that what we're doing so far is fine and as long as we keep growing in God and seeking his will that if God wants us to do something differently he will reveal it to us.

I meant to write a post about my new year and all my thoughts surrounding that, but as per usual I don't have much control over what I write. I guess that'll have to wait for later.