For the first Sunday in over a year, I will not be gracing an auditorium, cathedral or sanctuary as we travel home from the feast week called Thanksgiving. This beckons the inevitable question is skipping church ever healthy? So before I get myself in the deep messes of life, let me say, I love church. It is what I have given my life to. I believe church is a place of healing, hope, and salvation. But for church-folk like me, is a week away a bad thing? Now I am missing my Sunday routine, because I am creature of routine, but sometimes being able to step away from the routine re-aligns our vision to why we do what we do.
Most of us who do "church" can get caught up in doing "church". One more Sunday of serving, shaking hands, eating pasteries, singing songs and then repeat the next week. We treat our church routine like our daily routine of washing hair. While vitally important to what we do, it falls simply into the pattern of what we do. Sometimes absence does make the heart grow fonder, or at least more aware of what it is and why it is we do this thing called church. Church truly is the gathering of God's people, which can be lost in the busyness of the Sunday routine.
So this Sunday I have broke routine. I will spend my Sunday in a car traveling the roads returning back home with a renewed perspective on why I show up every Sunday to the place called "church". Church is not what we do, but it is who WE ARE!
