{"id":2197,"date":"2019-07-03T09:51:13","date_gmt":"2019-07-03T14:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=2197"},"modified":"2019-07-03T09:51:13","modified_gmt":"2019-07-03T14:51:13","slug":"worth-risking-on-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2019\/07\/03\/worth-risking-on-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Worth Risking On: The Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of my earliest memories of church are infused with deep pain and confusion.\u00a0<\/span>A pastoral affair had ripped our congregation in two, and while, as a seven-year-old, I didn\u2019t know why the church was in such turmoil, the\u00a0<\/span>reverberations<\/span>\u00a0of broken trust and grief trickled down to\u00a0<\/span>even the youngest members<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>I remember my parents crying a<\/span>b<\/span>out church, and I remember realizing that f<\/span>amilies<\/span>\u00a0I knew had left the church<\/span>, because\u00a0<\/span>I didn\u2019t see some of my friends anymore.\u00a0<\/span>A new pastor arrived\u00a0<\/span>and I didn\u2019t\u00a0<\/span>really<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>understand why.\u00a0<\/span>I couldn<\/span>\u2019t articulate it then, but I internalized something that\u00a0<\/span>had the potential to create<\/span>\u00a0a wall around my young heart\u2014that church is inevitably a place of pain<\/span>\u00a0and brokenness<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But\u00a0<\/span>due to<\/span>\u00a0the grace\u00a0<\/span>of the Lord\u00a0<\/span>and intentionality of<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>my parents, I also internalized something else:\u00a0<\/span>church is still worth it.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Church<\/p>\n

I learned this<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>because\u00a0<\/span>in the middle of the pain and the heartache, the fractured friendships and the broken trust,\u00a0<\/span>my parents didn\u2019t leave the church.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, t<\/span>hey kept showing up. They kept going to church, beleaguered and broken as it was.\u00a0<\/span>My parents<\/span>\u00a0kept talking about Jesus and singing about Jesus and loving his people and being a part of the\u00a0<\/span>B<\/span>ody of Christ in their daily and weekly lives.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u00a0<\/span>was a testament to<\/span>\u00a0me, even as a young girl, that church was worth\u00a0<\/span>a great deal<\/span>.\u00a0<\/span>Their<\/span>\u00a0actions and their lives pointed to the truth that<\/span>\u00a0while pain\u00a0<\/span>in the church\u00a0<\/span>might be inevitable, leaving does not have to be.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0They showed me that there are some things worth risking on a<\/span>nd worth fighting for, and\u00a0<\/span>church was at the top of that list.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why? Because Jesus showed us that\u00a0<\/span>the C<\/span>hurch was worth ri<\/span>sking on to the highest degree: it was worth his life.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the rest of the article here, at Deeply Rooted Magazine<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Still<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some of my earliest memories of church are infused with deep pain and confusion.\u00a0A pastoral affair had ripped our congregation in two, and while, as a seven-year-old, I didn\u2019t know why the church was in such turmoil, the\u00a0reverberations\u00a0of broken trust and grief trickled down to\u00a0even the youngest members.\u00a0I remember my parents crying about church, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2197"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2201,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2197\/revisions\/2201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}