Church and I
So what am I doing in church now? I never stopped attending Eben-Ezer (although I did stop going regularly for about a year). E.B. is my family, they raised me and all my friends there. We are brothers and sisters. I don’t mean that in a “we’re brothers and sisters in Christ” type of sense either. I’m talking about we are all each others’ best friends. We’re a ridiculously tight-knit group of folks at that church. We hang out outside of church, barge into each others’ homes unannounced, hug, kiss, cry, eat and drink after each other, finish each others’ sentences…we are in love with each other. Nobody ever leaves Eben-Ezer (and by leaving Eben-Ezer, we mean you’ve left the whole state of Georgia) without eventually coming back or scheduling so many trips to visit home that they might as well have never left. That’s my church, and hopefully it always will be. So while I may have no longer held the same beliefs as my family, they were still mine and I could not imagine abandoning them without good reason (100 miles in between us is the only acceptable reason).
I stayed for the fellowship. And…I stayed for the music. We’re the “musical” Haitian Adventist church in Atlanta. Nobody can touch us on that. And I loooooove me some gospel music. There’s nothing like it. There’s no secular equivalent to a 40+ member choir belting out blue chords and minor melodies over a keyboard/organ/bass/drums soundtrack. Nothing.
So I stayed. And through my patience and sticking around….-ness, even when certain things literally made me sick to my stomach, I have regained a respect for religion; well…the power of religion, at least. I support my friends in their ongoing quest for unity with Christ, and I have an appetite to learn about the religion again. Albeit more from a historical or scholarly standpoint. Besides the fellowship, my love for serving at Eben-Ezer made me stay. I don’t know why, but despite the stress, the disorganization, and the conflict, I have an appetite for doing work for E.B. I’m here…hopefully for the long-haul.
I’ve just learned this from an Adventist friend of mine. It sounded so strange to me that most of the Adventist churches function without a steady choir. ‘There’s no secular equivalent to a 40+ member choir belting out blue chords and minor melodies over a keyboard/organ/bass/drums soundtrack.’ Nuff said! I feel you. Hm!
Most adventist churches function w/o a steady choir? I didn’t know that. No really, I didn’t.