I went to a couple of AA meetings this evening, and someone said something that I had heard before, but it stuck out to me this time around. He said that he was upset with AA a long time ago, but his higher power arranged things so that he heard something at each meeting that made him want to come back.
But do all people hear something interesting or profound at meetings that makes them want to come back? No, according to a woman at the same meeting. She said that she stopped going to meetings for a while because she was bored with them. "I got sick of hearing the same old thing, over and over," she remarked. Then why was she at this meeting? Because she felt she needed meetings to keep sober. When she was using, she wasn't holding down a job. When she came to AA meetings and made a commitment to keep sober, her life was better. Certainly she could put up with some boredom for that!
All of this resonated with me because of one of my insomniac quiet times last night. An insomniac quiet time is when I can't sleep and pray to God for an hour. I usually go into the prayer time with discontent, anger, and inner turmoil, and I come out of it in a state of serenity and inner peace--the sort of mindset that helps me get to sleep!
One of my topics in last night's prayer was why I go to church. Do I do so because I like it? Is it a matter of forcing myself to go? Is it a little of both?
There have been times when I have literally forced myself to go to church. When I was in New York, I made myself go to a particular place for four solid months. I felt like an outsider during the "passing the peace" part of the service (which was more than just shaking hands--it was practically a party!). And, while the sermons were artful in deriving practical applications from some of the most obscure sections of the Torah, they really didn't feed me that much. Usually, they amounted to "mush, mush, mush--support the work!," or they emphasized the cozy topic of fire and brimstone. The preacher was humorous, but I concluded that I wasn't getting much out of that particular church.
For a while, I felt guilty because I wasn't attending church every week. I felt pretty rootless as I was searching for churches! I just wasn't feeling "fed" at a lot of the Adventist places that I was visiting. So there were some Sabbaths in which I didn't attend church at all, and I felt as if I was displeasing to God. Plus, my weekends were pretty empty without church!
Eventually, I found the New York Metro Adventist Forum and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. The institutions were radically different from each other--one was liberal, and the other was pretty conservative--but both of them supplemented each other and fed me spiritually. Every week at the Forum, we discussed an interesting topic, and I also valued the fellowship, since these were open people (their political liberalism notwithstanding). At Redeemer, I enjoyed the way that Tim Keller tied the Bible to God's love in Christ. I felt like I learned something every week at both churches!
When I moved to Cincinnati, I wasn't eager to look for another church, so I didn't go for three years. I visited some, but they usually bored me. Then I discovered the Latin mass near my apartment. I didn't really like the priest's sermons the first few times, since they sounded so dry and legalistic. But I came to enjoy his interaction with the church fathers, philosophy, Aquinas, Catholic eschatology, etc., etc. I feel as if I'd miss something by not going to those services, and that's what motivates me to get out of bed on Sunday mornings!
Sure, there have been times when I've gotten up half-asleep, gone to church, and found that my favorite priest is not the one speaking. But I still sit through the homily because there's always a chance that I'll get something out of it. I usually want to give a service a chance rather than walking out because it's not exactly what I anticipated.
I don't really force myself to go to church anymore. I go because there's always a possibility that I will get something out of it, and that I will be missing something by not going. Is this enough to sustain my church attendance over a long period of time. I don't know. It helps me now.