The Joy of Simple Church

When I was a kid, I didn’t go to church because my parents didn’t. Later, I didn’t go because my friends didn’t. It wasn’t until I had made a sufficiently successful mess of my life that I knew I needed to go—but I didn’t want to be there.

Later still, I wanted to be in church but couldn’t find one where I “fit.” Being told I was the problem, I kept going, hoping I would eventually discover the joy I was “supposed” to experience as a believer.

Something was missing.

It wasn’t the music. It wasn’t the sermons. It wasn’t the wooden pews—though those could be uncomfortable enough. It was God. I didn’t feel His presence within the institutional walls. I tried to take notes. I tried to engage. But that empty space—the hole in my soul that only the Holy Spirit can fill—remained.

Then I let go of the reins.

I gave up trying to control how I was supposed to meet God.

And Jesus showed up.

One day He showed up in a casual encounter at the supermarket. The next day He was at my favorite coffee shop. Then He appeared in a crowded park. And most surprisingly, He met me in the middle of nowhere, when I thought I was alone.

A wooden bench would appear in the distance. A fellow pilgrim would arrive. And “church” would happen when I least expected it.

That wooden bench never felt so comfortable while sharing the Word under open skies with a brother or sister in Christ I didn’t know I had.

Once I realized that Jesus is the reason for church in the first place—that God knows us better than we know ourselves—I stopped fighting the world’s definition of what church must look like.

In the words of C.S. Lewis, I was “surprised by joy.”

Simple church—seven days a week—became less a mandate and more an adventure along the narrow path.

And one of the byproducts of this pilgrimage has been love.

Love for fellow pilgrims who gather wherever two or three meet by Divine Appointment.

Love for denominational brothers and sisters. I hold no allegiance to any system—only to Jesus and His Way.

And love for those who do not yet believe. Our conversations feel respectful and free because I am not trying to sell them a church. I am simply inviting them to know Jesus and His promise of everlasting life.

It’s simple.

And for me, that simplicity produces a joy far deeper than worldly happiness.

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“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.”
Matthew 18:20 (NKJV)