Committed

Like any long relationship, there can be seasons of great enthusiasm and seasons of drought in church life. There will be times when participating in a local body is fun, exciting, and full of energy and hope. There will also be times when church, and all that goes with it will be hard, stressful, annoying, or boring. It is important to remember that even those times can, and often do, bear fruit. “I also believe that in some ways church does—or did—save me. It didn’t save me in the ways you might expect: a spectacular Sunday service, a homerun sermon, or a gripping worship set. God’s primary tool to transform my heart was not the conference speaker or the travelling revivalist or the worship concert. Those events were important, but now I realize that, more often, God changed my life using routine worship services in which I sang hymns I didn’t quite understand and heard messages I didn’t quite grasp” (Daniel Darling, “Boring Church Services Changed My Life,” Christianity Today, February 15, 2017, https://www.christianitytoday.com/pastors/2017/february-web-exclusives/boring-church-services-changed-my-life.html). When the believer makes the intentional decision to be committed to the people in the church, it will bear fruit.