1st Sunday Devotional – Lives of Faith

A church is not a group of friends you’ve picked. It is a group of brothers and sisters God has picked for you. – Michael Horton

We celebrated Homecoming Day at our little country church today. That is always a special day for us. I’ve been going there since I married many years ago. At the time, my husband’s family had moved to a farm just a mile or so down the road from the church. In those days, people generally went to whatever church was close by. For a few weeks, they did go across the county to the church where they were members before they moved, but it was a long drive. And Goshen was just up the road. Some of the church people paid them a visit and even though they missed the members at the other church, they changed their membership to the nearer church.

Our county has many of these country churches that were established back in the horse and buggy days when going to church miles away was not an easy trek.  But now people don’t mind driving to wherever they find the best place for them to worship. My family and I have been driving past a very nice church to keep going to the little country church ever since we married.

We would sometimes talk about changing our membership to the nearer church, but then we’d keep on driving back to the one in the country. Once we said we’d change if gas got to be a dollar a gallon. I mean that was way too much, but then gas got up to a dollar a gallon and much more than that. We kept driving out to our little country church. It was home.

Through the years the attendance has gone up and down, mostly down in the last few years. When I first joined the church, the older members  used to talk about what a crowd would show up at the meetings, especially at revival time. They said the church would be packed while some men had to stand outside at the windows to listen to the preaching.

I’ve never seen that, but in my early years as a member there the church was fuller each Sunday than it has been for years. Still, we had a nice congregations of faithful members. Then Covid came along with long closures. When we put on masks and opened the church for worship again, attendance was slow to pick back up.

While we sometimes have struggles filling many pews on a regular Sunday, we have nearly always had plenty of pews filled on Homecoming Day. Today was no different. The picture up top was taken early before more people arrived to fill more seats.

Some former members come back every year. These two friends who posed for a picture at a Homecoming a few years ago grew up in our church. It was so good to see them both back today. Both are 98 years old. One lives in an assisted living home. The other still lives in her own house. We were glad to recognize them as our oldest members at our services today.  We still count them as members even though they moved on to other churches for most of their years. They still come “home” on Homecoming Day.

They both surely have many memories of being at our church when they were children. Ralph was one of eleven children. His parents brought him and his brothers and sisters to church every Sunday. Polly’s family was smaller. She had three siblings. Both moved to other churches when they married and started going to those nearest churches. But on Homecoming Day they are at Goshen wearing smiles as they walk back in their memories to those early years of worship. Both had daughters with them today to make their day at our church even better. Even though the daughters were never members at our church, somehow they are part of church family now too.

We are blessed to have had so many faithful families to be part of our church through the years. Today we celebrated 213 years as a church and these two lovely people can remember quite a few of those years. Their faith and Christian love brightens our church when they show up on Homecoming.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. …Hebrews 12:1 (NLT)