When I first visited our home church, the thing that struck me the most was that these people really love the Lord with all their hearts! It is truly what our church is all about. We love the Lord. We adore Him, we spend time gazing at His beautiful face and beholding Him, we love the real expression of Jesus present in each of His saints, we explore Him together, commune with Him together, sing to, praise and worship Him together, we even listen to love songs from Him to us.

I've been going through a gradual transformation as I've entered into church life, leaving behind the traditional church experience I had grown up with.

One of the first changes was discovering that He wants nothing more than to love us and be loved by us. Just as living in Him brings me completeness and fulfillment, so Him living in me (and the rest of His bride) brings Him completeness and fulfillment. Why else would He have endured the cross? Because He is madly in love with His bride--you and me, we who belong to Him!

He desires this above any kind of service I could render Him. He is the King after all, He has all the resources He needs to get things done. What He wants is for us to love Him, above all else.

And this church I've joined is all about doing just that. We've stripped away anything that might distract us from loving Him, things the traditional church easily gets mired in--committees, choirs, ushers, ministries, offerings, service, projects, etc. etc. Our church has gotten rid of all of that, even the pastor, and sermons, and worship teams, or teams of any sort. We have returned to the simple church practices of the first century, which is our true Christian heritage. We simply love the Lord with all of our hearts and lives. And it is glorious!