Warning, this won't be what you expect...

I grew up as the son of two ministers.
I used to work as a youth minister.
I have provided representation at every level of my church's organization, from local to National.

I no longer go to church.

I've given up the Sunday Morning rush to spend time enjoying the Sacredness that abounds around me. This morning, for example, I had a wonderful conversation with Hive account@prairiepinner. Then, we shared breakfast with the Lil' Pinner. After that, we hung out as a family, talked about things, and had some great giggles.

This was a sacred morning.

This was not taken this morning...this is from about a year ago.

You see, Hive account@prairiepinner and I have come to learn that our faith (and make no mistake, we are people of faith) doesn't depend on us being in the pews on Sunday morning. In fact, some of the most holy and sacred moments I've ever experienced have been in doing things that aren't even church related.

A few weeks ago, I was in the presence of the Holy as I worked along side other firefighters and paramedics to extricate someone who was trapped and injured after a collision.

I'm grateful to experience the Sacred Presence whenever I'm blessed by the Lil' Pinner's giggles.

God is present and imminent whenever I engage in a deep and meaningful conversation with friends new and old. (God is in fact present and imminent even when the conversation is shallow and pointless...just more easily seen when it is deep and meaningful.)

So, I am no longer going to feel guilty about not being in a pew. It's never really been our thing as a family anyways. The last church we attended on a regular basis as a family didn't look much like church at all.
There was no set order of service.
There wasn't a minister or preacher to lead it.
There were kids everywhere.
We spent as much time talking to each other and learning about each other as we did "worshipping".
It was messy, noisy, and chaotic.

But you know what...

It was all the more sacred for the chaos.