Picture Perfect Purple

Purple Flowers

 A member of our extended family passed away two weeks ago. Her obituary had a note requesting that attendees of her memorial service wear her favorite color. A church full of purple, can you imagine? A country church, away from the hustle and bustle of a city, filled with generations, and the majority wearing something of people - even if a couple were bands on a sleeve. In some instances such bands would be black - here they were a celebratory color, and so was the service.

Her minister son-in-law was quite content to have the church pastor conduct the service, and it started off with a bit of difficulty with the sound system, so there would be no music. The pastor had known her all of his life - their parents had been best friends before their children grew up together. He sat with her during his first times in a congregation. Before him now were her parents, siblings, children, grandchildren - and extended family members, by marriages within that group.

Members of her family spoke - then the pastor asked if others would like to. The lady that walked to pick up the microphone said that she had known her since grade school. New to the school, she was very uncomfortable her first day, especially as she walked into the cafeteria. Where would she sit? She knew no one. Then she saw a girl's smile and headed to sit with her. As she sat her tray down, the smiling girl asked a question: "She asked a five-words that changed my life forever."

"Hi! Do you have a church home?"

She didn't. They were new in town. Before the weekend, her new friend's father had visited the family and picked her up on his bus route to their church for Sunday services.

That struck home for me, too. When we moved into the home we've had for almost 30 years, it was a multi-generation home on an acreage. My dad lived with my husband and I, while next door was my daughter's family. A friend from her school asked a similar question, and now five generations have held membership in that church.

A few of us requested membership based on our own salvation experiences years before, but soon new generations came to understand what was necessary for salvation:

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. (John 3:15-18 KJV)

It works just as simply as one child asking another "Do you have a church home?" But - it doesn't have to be a child. It can be a neighbor, a friend, a co-worker, actually - someone you just met as you both stood at a gasoline pump and you ask, "Do you have a church home?"

However - I can think of a few people that read this blog that I know do not have a church home. I know their reasons, and I haven't pressed them for answers. That has to change. According to the history of mankind as well as actuarial tables, my time on this earth is getting shorter every day. That's not unusual, it is true of everything on this earth. 

So this time, I'm asking - and I hope I get a few answers - Do you have a church home?

If "Yes!" please leave a comment about it. Would love to hear anything about your church home you are willing to share. If "No," what can I do for you to help find the kind of home that offers a child who loves purple and decades after asking that very question has her life celebrated by people who loved her enough to not only wear purple, but to tell others the effect she had on the lives of people around her for eternity.

By the end of the service, still no wiring carried music, but none of us were concerned. One person suggested we all sing "Amazing Grace." The song swelled, mostly out of tune, but loud, clear, and full of joy that God's grace brought us all together. We were from different walks of life, on different steps in our journey with God, yet all filled with the hope and promise that God's amazing grace gives us:

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: (Ephesians 2:8 KJV)