ChurchWith.Us - Post | What I Love About My Church

Many months ago, I joined an online blogging community focused on Christian writting called ChurchWith.us created by Adam Lehman.  I had become deadweight over a few months, as I had yet to contribute to it.  I believe there is a set amount of contributors which at some point was near 100 if I'm not mistaken.  I decided to start off my first blog entry with thoughts on what I loved about my church.  I have reproduced the original blog post below (from 10/3/2011):

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Big spacious rooms. Rockin’ band. Sweet chairs. Good moral lessons.

Wait. What?

While some of those are true, it’s not what first came to mind. Residing in Indianapolis, I’ve been attending College Park Church for the past two years.

A very consistent and important thing that I have come to look for in a service is the Gospel. Woven into the fabric of every Sunday, it doesn’t matter what the sermon is about, they’re always pointing back to Christ. If a Church isn’t preaching Christ as the risen Savior, then I would question whether it’s a Christian church. It’s the foundation of what is at the core of Christianity.

What is the Gospel? It is what God has done through Christ for saving his people. God calls people to Himself. People respond and are transformed.

What is the Gospel not? The Gospel is not what I do. I can’t live the Gospel because the Gospel isn’t what I can ever possibly do. It is simply what God has done in his sovereignty, and the impact of that continues throughout time as he continues to call sinners to himself.

It can be easy to miss the point and think “Okay, I’ve heard the Gospel, now onto living as a Godly Christian.” The Gospel needs to be at the core of who we are and how we respond to everything. Without the Gospel holding everything together, there are simply moral teachings and good ways to live out life.

At the end of the day, all that a Christian really has is Christ.