For many of us, our search for a church that is “meeting my needs,” added with our mobile society, does not allow us to experience what a commitment to a local body of believers over a long period of time can really mean. “Freedom does not always mean going…. Freedom often means staying. That’s certainly true of the Christian understanding of marriage. Staying with one partner over a lifetime opens me up to the goodness of God in a way that serial monogamy doesn’t.” Church is the same. Developing deep, ongoing relationships is more beneficial to our spiritual health than just finding the immediate experience — the brief sensation of feeling like I have finally found a home, where I agree with the theology and music (at least for a time).
–David Goetz
Our American society has continued to push upon us the idea that the need of the individual is of highest priority. So we search for what will “meet” my individual needs. Unfortunately, we are often like children wanting a candy bar just before dinner. But many of our parents required that we have a long-term commitment to better meal choices, knowing it would be better for our health than the candy bar. Too many have carried this child-like mentality of not needing self-control with them from childhood into adulthood — and it bleeds into many other areas of life — Including how we might choose a church. We see so many people hopping from one experience to the next, instead of learning to stay and build lasting relationships.
God created us for intimate relationships – with Him and with others. And intimate relationships can only be built over long periods of time. May God help us to learn how to be people of commitment to Him and to one another. May He help us to have a stronger commitment to relationships with others than we have to our own experiences. God has not told us to find more ways to meet our own needs, but rather that we should consider the needs of others as more important than the needs and experiences of oneself. That idea certainly flies against the trend of society, but if we will embrace it we will find ourselves growing more healthy as we engage in self-control, commitment, and deepening relationships with one another.