Micah and I sit in cushioned chairs in the church balcony, our backs against the wall. We’ve been coming to this spacious church for almost twenty years and have sat in this row most Sundays ever since Micah was a toddler. We are early, alone at the far end of our row (Todd is still downstairs talking with a friend), except for one middle-aged man with dark hair and glasses, an Abe Lincoln look-alike, about five chairs to our left. There is about ten feet between our chairs and the railing that separates us from a multitude of seats below.
The worship leader, a red-headed man in his thirties, begins to sing and play piano. This has always been Micah’s favorite part, a time when he can stand, walk about, move around to the music. The words are on large projector screens, but Micah doesn’t sing. He just smiles, sways, and bounces up and down to the beat. This is the reason we sit where we do.
It feels good to be here. Our attendance this year has been hit or miss. Sometimes we’ve been out of town, sometimes the weather has been bad (we had eight blizzards last winter), sometimes we’ve chosen to just stay home and watch the service online, an option made popular by the pandemic. It’s a habit that has been hard to break.
We sit back down in our seats. Todd has finally come upstairs; he walks toward us and sits next to me. A friend of ours walks by, says hi, gives Micah a fist bump. The seventy-ish white-haired pastor stands at the podium and begins speaking in his easy, comfortable style. Today’s message is about the holiness of God and that God calls us to be holy as well. He talks about what we can do to accomplish this. I look at Micah, wondering if he is listening, if he is grasping this concept. I lean into him to explain softly. But just as I start to open my mouth, he whispers, “Mom, I will try to do good for Grandpa Howard in heaven.”
“Oh Micah, Grandpa loves you and knows you try to do good. But the pastor is talking about what you need to do to be saved…to go to heaven and be with God. There is nothing we need to do except repent of our sin and trust in the Lord Jesus. I know you’ve done that, Micah. There’s nothing else you need to do.” He looks at me and smiles.
After the sermon, the worship leader comes back to the piano and leads us in a couple more songs. Micah stands up again, begins to move and bounce, wide smile on his face, his contentment and joy a blessing to behold.
It seems I’m not the only one who thinks it feels good to be in church today.