My Journey with the Lord: My First Church

Once I became a Christian, my friend explained to me the concept of church (why we go to church as well as emphasizing the importance of fellowship with other believers).  He invited me to come and visit his church, but I decided to attend the church my mom had been attending for the previous six months or so.

Even now, as I just paused for a moment remembering my first church experience as a believer, I can't help but smile.  I remember the smell and the color of the pews and the wonder of looking around me and watching other believers worship God together.  My very few previous experiences with "church" had made me feel like it was a formalized, dry routine that people had to go through to just "put in" their time to soothe their consciences or boost their self-esteem.  Church as a believer was a much, much different experience.

First, I remember the experience of singing praises to God and the wonder of listening to all of these voices around me wholeheartedly worshiping God together.  I remember turning and looking at a teenager standing on the other side of the aisle from me.  Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be singing directly to God.  I then focused in on an elderly couple in front of me.  Their heads were bowed as they sang, incredibly reverently.  This was unlike anything I had ever experienced.

And then the pastor approached the pulpit and began to pray and then preach.  I furtively glanced across the aisle at the teenage girl who had previously seemed so intimately connected to God.  She had an open notebook in her lap and was scribbling away as the pastor preached and I couldn't help but notice her Bible was all marked up with notes and underlined verses.  This all seemed so intriguing to me as a brand new believer.   I couldn't be intrigued for very long though because God pulled me to attention as the pastor continued to preach.  He was referencing chapters and verses in the Bible and the people around me were quickly flipping to the appropriate page.  Panic set in.  I had no idea where these chapters and verses were in the Bible.  I didn't know what books were in the Old Testament or the New Testament.  The prideful, little perfectionist in me reared her ugly head and I found myself embarrassed at my lack of knowledge.  Thankfully, just as my face started to flush pink, the pastor gently mentioned that if anyone was new to reading the Bible, the passage could be found on page ---.  Relief washed over me as I quickly flipped to the appropriate page. 

The preaching itself was another amazing, new experience for me.  The pastor took us through a select passage of Scripture, reading it and then explaining what was going on giving context to the reading.  He then ended with instructions on ways to apply what we had learned to our lives.  I gobbled this up, desperate to know more and more about this God who had chosen me and drawn me into a relationship with Him.  I was so grateful to be His child and I wanted to know more and more.

As the year progressed on and I continued going to church Sunday after Sunday, I started to become friends with other Christian girls.  By the spring of my junior year of high school, I joined a small group of girls and we met every Sunday evening to pray, study the Bible together, hold each other accountable and be mentored by a young mother in our church who graciously gave up her time to disciple us.   God used this small group to take my relationship with Him to a whole new level.  I greatly admired the young mother who led our small group and I watched her very closely, trying to emulate her relationship with the Lord. 

Through this small group, I became very close friends with another girl my age.  She was so passionate for the Lord and we spurred one another on to a deeper walk with the Lord all that summer between our junior and senior year of high school.

It was also during this year that the Lord began to give me a passion for missions.  I was so excited about this new relationship with Jesus that I wanted to share Him with everyone.  Although I scaled back and wasn't as pushy about my faith as I was in those first few months as a believer, my heart still would beat faster every time a missionary would come to our church and speak.  I found books that fed this passion during that first year as a believer.  Books like Shadow of the Almighty were incredibly instrumental in introducing me to the world of missionaries.  Also, my friend who had led me to Christ had many extended family members who were missionaries (his great-grandfather was martyred in Bolivia). And then, most importantly, my church continued to display a strong commitment to seeing the gospel spread which obviously had the biggest effect on me as we prayed Sunday after Sunday for specific missionaries and heard about their work.

As I grew in my faith in this first year as a believer, I looked forward to my time at church.  I couldn't wait to get there on Sunday mornings and to learn and grow and fellowship with people who shared a genuine relationship with the Lord.  It was so new and so amazing!!!