A new church

I'm not known to be someone who purposefully goes past her comfort level. This is true with religion and, more specifically, where I attend church services. I have been going to the same type of church my entire life. I was born and raised in one sect of Christianity and have only been to a handful of services for different types of Christianity. As I meet more Christians, my ideas about Christianity have changed slightly. I have realized that all of these different sects of Christianity are not, for the most part, very different from each other. Yes, services can be incredibly varied from church to church but the underlying command never changes: love.

Yesterday was my first time to go to a Sunday service at a church that falls into the same traditions with which my boyfriend grew up knowing. The only things that I found different were the music and the congregation. Some of the music was not what I prefer for Sunday service. However, I did enjoy the challenge to sight sing music with complex melodies. It has been a long time since I have seen a 6/8 time signature. The music wasn't what caught my attention though.

I have never met a group of such outgoing people in a church. It seemed that almost everyone wanted to introduce themselves to us and welcome us personally to their church. No one tried to push us into joining, donating money, or taking part in their ministries. They simply expressed their happiness to meet us and their hope that they would see us again. What actually shocked me was that not a soul found it odd that I was not the same type of Christian as them and that I have no plans of changing that. I learned that this church had Baptists, Lutherans, Roman Catholics, Methodists, etc and it didn't matter. My boyfriend and I agreed that these Christians seem to look at our religion in the same light. We may give ourselves different names for what we believe but that's not what matters. In the end, we all were there to praise God, learn how to love, and to support each other. This is a church that seems to have the message right: love God, follow his laws, and love each other. The rest will come along naturally.