Practicing Until We Need It [excerpt]

© 2009 David Masters, Flickr | CC-BY

When we are little children, we learn to walk long before we understand physics. We speak long before we can spell a word. We sing songs and dance to music long before we can read a note on a page.

Such is faith. We pray, recite, attend worship, and many other things long before we know what they mean. I’ve learned that one of the important parts is that we are practicing for when we need it.

In a recent article, Amy Butler, pastor of The Riverside Church in New York, wrote powerfully about the role of the church today: “We are islands in a world full of increasingly adrift people. We are places of solace and hope, community and hospitality for people who are too smart to believe in God and pretty convinced they don’t need the church — until they do.”

To add to Amy’s words: we all may be children who never grew up, constantly distracted and often guilty of mindless repetition…until the day comes that we need those words and songs that we can say without thinking.

[Read the full article at Practicing Familes]