Our daily life is made up of habits. We all have habits that govern our waking hours, days, and weeks. From minor (“I always listen to the same music on the way to work”) to the major (“I always take a vacation with my grandchildren in the summer”), our time is marked by rhythms and patterns – many of them unconscious.
James Clear wrote a bestselling book, Atomic Habits, that points out the incredible effect of tiny habits on your overall wellbeing. He writes, “It is only when looking back two, five, or perhaps ten years later that the value of good habits and the cost of bad ones becomes strikingly apparent.”
As the treadmill of daily life speeds up this fall, I want to offer a bold claim: Making a habit of regular church participation will transform your life.
If you make it a priority just to start your week on Sunday at Christ Church, your life will change. If you decide that you (and your family or your circle of friends) are going to jump in with both feet by joining a group for the program year, I promise that you will be amazed before you are halfway through.
We see so many negative headlines about increased loneliness, exploding anxiety, especially in our young people, heightened division, and a general lack of hope about the future. We may not have a magic pill that solves these problems, but we do have church.
Church is one of the last places we gather intergenerationally to focus on a shared good. Church is one of the only places where your political opinions are not a prerequisite for membership. Church is the last place we gather to sing, to mourn, to celebrate, and to live out our daily lives in community with each other and with God. In other words, church is how God created us to exist.
As you start filling in the calendar for this fall, I invite you to make Christ Church a cornerstone habit. Make Sunday the starting point of your week. At the very least, worship can help combat the “Sunday scaries.” Even more, becoming deeply involved in your spiritual home will draw you deeper into the heart of God and give you the space to rest in your belovedness as a child of God.
But don’t take my word for it.
Jesus said, “I have come that you may have life and have it abundantly.”
This is going to be an amazing year at Christ Church. We have a spot just for you. We can’t wait to see you this Sunday at Fall Parish Day.
