I did have a church experience

For a long time now I've struggled with the demand that I join a church and similar subject matter. I just came to consider myself a crank on the subject since I never felt called to join a church. This morning, thinking about it, and as a result of a short exchange with a seminary professor on the internet on a subject sort of connected to this subject, I had a realization.

I did have a church experience. I did once join a church. It was Arnold Murray's church in Arkansas via satellite. He would often answer, when someone would ask the question if this was a church, "Yes it is. You can consider this your church."

It was from him, his reading the Bible complete over the air, that I heard the call that was effectual in me. I bought the tapes, I ordered the books, I was engaged. He got me to read the Bible myself complete. I became regenerated by the word and the Spirit.

A few years back I had a very unusual experience with that same church. One day, after not having any contact with Murray's church for going on 20 years, I began to wonder if they were selling any books that were new, i.e. that they began to offer after I left; so I called them to request simply a book list. The girl manning the phone lines basically said to me: "You were once here, you're here no more, no you can't have a book list." Very blunt, very matter-of-fact, very strange. She didn't know me even by name. It was like she was saying: "You graduated from here, you can't come back. You've moved on. It's unnatural for you to be calling here." That is the impression I got from her words.

This morning it just occurred to me that a) I *did* have a church experience where I heard the word of God from a preacher and he 'hooked' me; and b) I once really did belong to a visible church, but I moved on in a good, real way. I moved on because I needed more orthodox doctrine (Calvinism, Federal/Covenant Theology) and a more practical level understanding of the faith, and I found all that.

So the conclusion to all this is I don't have to be a crank on the subject of the visible church ("they're shallow" - "they exalt man and ritual over the word and the Spirit" - "they keep people in a nursery when Christians are to be prophets, priests, and kings" - etc., though those things may be true the churches also do what Murray's church did for me...reached me. His effort to make the word of God heard had effect in me, and that is something God rewards in individuals like Murray); nor do I have to be defensive on the subject of not belonging to a visible church because I was there and got what God intended I got. God lets you know what you need, and He's communicated to me on this subject, and fortunately it only took me a decade or more to hear that.