When God Stops Being Subtle

It's not always a "still, small voice."

# God Talks

I’ve been wrestling with where to go to church.

My son became Catholic a little over a year ago, so I go with him sometimes. But I’m not Catholic. I grew up Baptist, then left that church a long time ago for reasons that probably weren’t very good ones, and I haven’t been Baptist in years. I am definitely a Protestant. I just haven’t been able to settle on where to land.

I told myself this was because I couldn’t find a church that met my strict (but somehow also arbitrary) theological requirements.

I’ve started to see that for what it is. A deception. A self-deception.

Procrastinating on a church home, a body of believers I can commit to being with every week, is just a form of not deciding to go anywhere. I know that’s not good for me. It’s not acceptable. There are things I need from the body of Christ, from other believers. There are things they need from me. By staying out of all that, I’m not following the Lord’s instructions, and those instructions are not rules designed to make me miserable (I have to keep reminding myself). They are guidelines for keeping me in a healthy relationship with Him and with my fellow creations.

Recently I was chatting with my friend Frank Viola, and I put my conundrum to him. His suggestion: just start visiting churches. The Lord will show you which one. At the very least, you’ll know what’s happening in the churches around you.

I think that was a nice way of telling me to go to church.

So I started poking around. Locations, doctrinal statements, websites. I remembered there’s a non-denominational Protestant church about five minutes from my house. From the one time I visited, more than a year ago, I recalled it being very biblically based. I didn’t introduce myself to many people that day. They had no idea who I was. Why would they? I never went back.

Five minutes away. A reasonable 10:00 a.m. start time on Sundays.

Then I clicked through their website, and I noticed something. In one of the photographs was a picture of me. Standing underneath a big banner that said, in all caps:

COME TO CHURCH.

Okay, Lord. Message received.

I told my wife about it a little cautiously, half expecting her to say, “Oh Ray, you may be making too much of this.”

Instead she laughed out loud and said, “Well, it’s pretty obvious what you’re supposed to do.”

That’s the word from my resident Holy Spirit.