One Year Anniversary

I haven't been blogging that long and I haven't talked about it that long but tonight was the year anniversary of our Midweek Fellowship, now known as The Valley Remnant. Gary didn't talk much, instead he invited us to share what the last year has meant to us. For me, it's my chance at spiritual growth. Because of past problems I haven't attended church in years and I won't. But there has been something nagging deep inside, it did bother me that I wasn't attending any type of spiritual gathering or increasing my knowledge of God's word. Even when Randy started taking Gary's classes, and invited me, I had zero interest in anything that resembled church. Then Randy told me about the next class which was entitled Religion vs. Relationshp... which seemed to be exactly in line with my thinking. I was convinced that organized religion was not of God, but of man - after all, if "religion" WAS of God, there could only be one - His! What was most important to me was my own personal relationship with God and I didn't feel I needed to go to church to have that relationship. In fact for quite a while I have said that my church is the great outdoors and my pew is a saddle...

Anyway I went to that class and it confirmed a lot of things for me. I did try to continue on with the next class but things were happening that reminded me too much of my past church experiences and I drifted away again. When Midweek Fellowship started up Randy was all excited and wanted me to come but I was leery. I did agree to come when I wasn't busy with something else, which was about half the time. This went on for a few months and then the last Wednesday in November, Gary mentioned the subject matter for the next week, which was when I usually skipped for my horse club meeting, and I just knew that I needed to hear that lesson. So I showed up then, and the next week my bunco group was cancelled for the holidays so I went again, and about that time I told Randy I was getting a very strong message that I needed to be at Midweek Fellowship. His immediate response was "No, I'm not pushing you" and I said "No, it's NOT you, it's coming from INSIDE ME and I think it's God!" And I've only missed once since - in fact I surprised Randy when I went without him the week he was working out of town.

Gary has talked a lot about the spiritual warfare going on, how things keep happening to people to keep them from coming, and I thought it odd that Randy and I haven't experienced that ourselves. But thinking about my "talk" for last night made me realize that Satan IS throwing things at me too - I personally have a lot of trouble with the dynamic of a "church" setting and when we outgrew our circle-in-the-living-room format and moved into a sanctuary to hold our meetings, it really bothered me. But I had a talk with myself and said hey, it's still Gary, it's still Midweek Fellowship, it's still about my relationship with God and learning more of his Word... so, knock it off and go anyway! And I'm still going! So that's how the first year of Midweek Fellowship has changed my life.