“and if the things we believed as kids were true
could you believe it all for me
’cause i would believe it all for you”
-Derek Webb“Red and orange
Or red and yellow
In which of these do you believe?
If you’re not sure right now, please take a moment
Cause I’ll need your signature before you leave”
-David Bazan“Seeking to know is only too often learning to doubt.”
–Antionette du Liger de la Garde Deshoulieres
Tomorrow I will be attending a church for the first time in a while. It’s probably been… a year? Or close to it. I guess probably the last time I was in any church was when I went with Jon and Kim to their church in FL… but that was with no intention of possibly continuing to go to said church, since it wasn’t local to me. Even so, that would have been in April (I think), a solid 6 months ago.
Aside from just specific people (all of whom I met through the church), more than anything I miss since leaving Burbank is the church I was attending there. I get the sense that it’s changed a bit since I left, but I’m sure I’d still feel I belonged there. I’ll get a chance to visit it before too long and know for sure. I can’t wait for December!
In any case, the church I will be attending tomorrow sounds like it aspires to be something that Central Avenue Church was. And that is the main reason why I loved Central (again, aside from people). A place where you can belong and seek God no matter what you believe. I don’t know if they’ll live up to it… From visiting their website and watching some youtube videos, a lot of their language still feels very churchy and evangelical to me. But they also strike me as genuinely wanting to just love people and have community. If they can live up to what they say, then I just might find a spiritual community in which I feel I belong again.
For me, it is all about being free to doubt. It’s about being free to disbelieve in things that, if I had to believe them, would cause me to abandon any connection to Christianity whatsoever. If this is a place I can hope that God is real, and that he loves us and suffers with us, then I’ll be right at home.