Memoir Stuff: About Church
Mar. 20th, 2011 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlightSo, yeah, went to church today, and thought about all of the times I've gone to church. Move to come on this tomorrow.
Church was always a big part of family time. I remember when my brother was born, and we had him dedicated, Dad came to church with us (which was unusual because Dad does not like church because his mom always made him go when he was a kid, even when he didn’t want to, even when he didn’t feel like it, and so now he most hates church. When Mum was in Kuwait, he took us almost every Sunday, I think, and he even stayed for Easter service). I missed his dedication, though, because the children’s ministry sang a song just before my family came up, and the teachers corralled us back to the children’s room before we had a chance to do anything silly or stupid.
But going to church was never much of an option for us. Mom always made us go. There was one time where I did not want to go (I was six, I think), and she promised me that if I went this one time, she wouldn’t make me go ever again. It killed her, but she kept that promise a couple of weeks later when I felt like staying home.
I only remember a couple of churches, because I haven’t really been to that many in my relatively short existence. There was the church we went to when we lived in Maryland, Evangelical Assembly, and it seems weird to me now that I probably came to that church as a baby and stayed until I was just about six, because I’m so non-denominational now that it isn’t even funny. But the Maryland church was good and we had a lot of friends there.
I remember Mom cleaned the church once (I thought she was being nice at the time, and maybe she just was, but based on information my parents have told me, she might have gotten paid to do it). Mom took Alizza and I, and Alizza’s friend Nikki, to play in the church while she vacuumed and shampooed the carpet, and we played hide and seek all over the church. I remember I was Mary in the Nativity Play the Children’s ministry put on one year, and one of the angels in the next (and I had a tinsel halo, while one girl had a halo with actual lights in it, which was much cooler, and was most certainly not fair). I was baptized there, and thought I would die because it felt like the pastor held me under for a little too long. I accepted Jesus into my heart, even though I didn’t know what that meant when I did it. We had VBS and church picnics, and my role in a skit got taken by someone else, because they had to be fair to the other kids.
When we moved to Colorado, there were some interim churches before we found the one we stayed with. The most I remember about that was playing chubby bunny (a game which involves a lot of marshmallows) in a shed that served as the room for the children’s ministry. I was just about the second person to lose that game.
When we came to Rocky Mountain Calvary Chapel I won’t say anything dramatic like it was coming home. I was six. I was just glad they let us color after worship. But that church was good; we went to that church just as soon as we found it, and have stayed with it ever since. I remember being taught the word of God on a constant, children’s loop in my younger years, before being taught by verse study in Junior High Scholl youth group, like the pastor would teach in the sanctuary. I remember helping in the children’s ministry, even when I was still a child, that Alizza didn’t like going to children’s church, that Daniel did not like church, or VBS, or anything, much at all, because it was just another place where they told him he was bad.
I remember church picnics, or probably just one, because I think we only ever made it to one and missed the others because Mom just forgot or we were traveling. I remember Easter services held in the Pike’s Peak Center or in the Sky Sox Baseball stadium, because our church just seemed to grow and grow, and to do only one or two services on Easter Sunday needed a bigger space than we had in the church. I remember moving into the new building, and we had one Easter there before we needed to expand back out to three services. And then we had to add on to that building, and we still have two services on Sunday. As I write this, I believe this will be the first Easter the church will have in that building. It might be the second.
I remember being recommitted there, really learning what it meant to give my life to Jessu. And learning about my faith and my weaknesses and being loved there. So completely and beautifully loved.
Piece WC: 842
3/20/11: 2098
Project WC: 45280
Still Reading: Girl Power
Church was always a big part of family time. I remember when my brother was born, and we had him dedicated, Dad came to church with us (which was unusual because Dad does not like church because his mom always made him go when he was a kid, even when he didn’t want to, even when he didn’t feel like it, and so now he most hates church. When Mum was in Kuwait, he took us almost every Sunday, I think, and he even stayed for Easter service). I missed his dedication, though, because the children’s ministry sang a song just before my family came up, and the teachers corralled us back to the children’s room before we had a chance to do anything silly or stupid.
But going to church was never much of an option for us. Mom always made us go. There was one time where I did not want to go (I was six, I think), and she promised me that if I went this one time, she wouldn’t make me go ever again. It killed her, but she kept that promise a couple of weeks later when I felt like staying home.
I only remember a couple of churches, because I haven’t really been to that many in my relatively short existence. There was the church we went to when we lived in Maryland, Evangelical Assembly, and it seems weird to me now that I probably came to that church as a baby and stayed until I was just about six, because I’m so non-denominational now that it isn’t even funny. But the Maryland church was good and we had a lot of friends there.
I remember Mom cleaned the church once (I thought she was being nice at the time, and maybe she just was, but based on information my parents have told me, she might have gotten paid to do it). Mom took Alizza and I, and Alizza’s friend Nikki, to play in the church while she vacuumed and shampooed the carpet, and we played hide and seek all over the church. I remember I was Mary in the Nativity Play the Children’s ministry put on one year, and one of the angels in the next (and I had a tinsel halo, while one girl had a halo with actual lights in it, which was much cooler, and was most certainly not fair). I was baptized there, and thought I would die because it felt like the pastor held me under for a little too long. I accepted Jesus into my heart, even though I didn’t know what that meant when I did it. We had VBS and church picnics, and my role in a skit got taken by someone else, because they had to be fair to the other kids.
When we moved to Colorado, there were some interim churches before we found the one we stayed with. The most I remember about that was playing chubby bunny (a game which involves a lot of marshmallows) in a shed that served as the room for the children’s ministry. I was just about the second person to lose that game.
When we came to Rocky Mountain Calvary Chapel I won’t say anything dramatic like it was coming home. I was six. I was just glad they let us color after worship. But that church was good; we went to that church just as soon as we found it, and have stayed with it ever since. I remember being taught the word of God on a constant, children’s loop in my younger years, before being taught by verse study in Junior High Scholl youth group, like the pastor would teach in the sanctuary. I remember helping in the children’s ministry, even when I was still a child, that Alizza didn’t like going to children’s church, that Daniel did not like church, or VBS, or anything, much at all, because it was just another place where they told him he was bad.
I remember church picnics, or probably just one, because I think we only ever made it to one and missed the others because Mom just forgot or we were traveling. I remember Easter services held in the Pike’s Peak Center or in the Sky Sox Baseball stadium, because our church just seemed to grow and grow, and to do only one or two services on Easter Sunday needed a bigger space than we had in the church. I remember moving into the new building, and we had one Easter there before we needed to expand back out to three services. And then we had to add on to that building, and we still have two services on Sunday. As I write this, I believe this will be the first Easter the church will have in that building. It might be the second.
I remember being recommitted there, really learning what it meant to give my life to Jessu. And learning about my faith and my weaknesses and being loved there. So completely and beautifully loved.
Piece WC: 842
3/20/11: 2098
Project WC: 45280
Still Reading: Girl Power
