the church: introduction

The church is a hot topic in blogging and discussion. Both Troy and Susan, my two favorite bloggers, have been writing about the emerging church. I attend a Bretheren in Christ church, which has strong anabaptist roots, but my local congregation has been transitioning slowly to a more liturgical style. My Dad and sister attend evangelical churches, my Dad's small and familiar, my sister's very large and professional. My brother and all of my co-workers are Reformed, and my stepfather, Kurt, is Lutheran. My mom attends church with Kurt, and sometimes they will hop over to a service with me, but she will calmly tell you that she dosen't feel that she fits anywhere, and is just a believer. So the lines smudge and blur quite a lot and I am not simply assigning labels, but as you can see, church comes up...
I have been thinking about this post for the last week, and the subject has just grown and expanded, so I am going to post in "chapters", sharing my history over several periods of time. I have it broken down into three sections, childhood through highschool, then college, and post-college, so stay tuned. This will be an interesting exercise for me as well, simply to think about the path that I have taken... Please feel free to comment along the way.
I hope, though, that what comes through as I write is a clear picture of my love for the church, in all it's frailty, in all it's mundane sunday to sunday repitition. Something huge is going on there, something that blesses when we least expect it. I think it is Jesus's love for his people. And every once in a while, usually a lot more often than we think, it comes through his people too.

The Church by Don Cohen