encouraging email of the week

Here is part of an email I received this week from a recent college grad. The reason it was so encouraging to me is not because he enjoyed Sunday's message, but because he's "getting" the church. . . . .

Yesterday as I was driving home after dinner with some friends, I thought a lot about the passage that you taught about in the morning. After rethinking through all of the ideas you expressed about the idea of “What in the world is the Church?”, I felt inclined to email you. I think I got the idea to email you for a couple of reasons. First, I wanted to let you know how much I agreed with the sermon, specifically about the relationship between college student’s involvement with on campus ministries and the local church, and also to offer a little encouragement, if possible.

I started attending Grace this February, and have come to fall in love with it, joining a growth group, going to Mexico with the high schoolers, playing basketball on Thursday nights, and being apart of the church family in other ways. I graduated from Cal Poly in June of 2006 and never really had a church home throughout college. I was heavily involved with Campus Crusade for Christ all five years and although I owe a lot of my spiritual growth and maturity to that movement, I have come to realize how much I missed out by not getting involved with a local church those five years. I found myself looking around during yesterday’s service and couldn’t have agreed more with your urge for college students to get involved with the church. We all do need each other, young and old, men and women, mature and still learning, rich and poor, etc., and I can tell that Grace Church is on the right track to be a church described in the Bible. The church isn’t about what I can get out of it, but how we can grow together to glorify and worship the Lord. Grace Church has become a place where I experience peace, belonging, the Story, and His presence.

I'm excited about where our Fall series, "What in the World is the Church?" is going to take us . . . Come along!