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Church Hiatus
"Growing up, I didn't pray regularly throughout the week - I would try to cram it all into Sunday. With my truancy from church, I felt the fear of somehow losing my religion and the guilt of being an inert Christian."
By Brandon McFarland
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This Sunday, Youth Radio’s Brandon McFarland will be taking his place in the choir stand at the church he grew up attending in Oakland, California. But until about a year ago, church had taken a backseat to work - and Brandon says his absence from Sunday services helped him come to a better understanding of his spirituality.
I love church. From the screaming organ, to the church mothers in big hats, to the peach and teal polyester choir robes. It's always fun to watch a 250-pound, man doing the church rock in one of those.
For me, being at church is like walking into an episode of "Cheers" - you know, everybody knows your name. But for a whole year, I was missing. I got a job that required me to work long hours on weekends. You can't announce that over the pulpit. "Brandon's got a job, ya'll, so he's not going to be coming through." So to my church family, I was there one day, and then, "poof!"
I felt sort of guilty being a no-show. Growing up, I didn't pray regularly throughout the week - I would try to cram it all into Sunday. With my truancy from church, I felt the fear of somehow losing my religion and the guilt of being an inert Christian. So my mom became my church. She told me you can never lose what God has put in you, and as long as I set aside personal time to read the Bible, then I'd be cool - guilt free.
Every time I had read the Bible in the past, I would start yawning and rubbing my eyes. I had never read anything in that good book that held my attention, that I could relate to. But after about four months of my mom being on my back, I finally opened up the book of proverbs. The first couple of scriptures had me hooked. King Solomon sits a group of young men down, and proceeds to basically tell them, "When you see a loose woman, run in the opposite direction!" Word?! It was the first time the Bible had ever made me laugh.
After a while, I started feeling like I was in church when I wasn't...kind of like being in an empty sanctuary all by myself. Reading the words on my own made me relate more to the Bible than staring at some guy break it down. More important, I used to only pray when I was in trouble, like most people do - "God, I need you to pay these bills for me." But I started to pray all week long, whenever I needed to get stuff off my chest.
A year later, I quit the job, and my first reaction was to wake up and go to church. Even though I had reached this new understanding of God, I realized spirituality is only part of what makes church so important. It's also a chance to be with all my blood relatives, and almost 300 others who have known me since I was born, and treated me like family ever since. Let me do the math - that means I got like 50 grandmothers, 100 uncles, and countless cousins. And 20 girlfriends. If there were no building, church would be in the park, or in the street - wherever the people are. And the Bible's no substitute for that.
But I actually had to leave church to realize...salvation won’t come from my parents or extended family. They talk about Jesus, and become joyous and loud. I’m not there yet, although I have a praise report - I’m making progress, developing a personal relationship with God.
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