A friend asked me, in response to my original post entitled "What Is This Thing Called Church Life?", if I found what I was looking for once I joined my home church.

I would have to say a resounding YES!

A huge thing that has changed since I've joined church life is my perspective. For some reason, even though I grew up in the traditional church, there were some basics of Christianity which I never realized. It wasn't until I found church life that I grasped these truths. Here is one:

• That when I believed on Jesus Christ, He came into me, and has dwelled within me, completely and fully, ever since. There is never one iota of a second when we are separated--we are fused as one. I am always and completely in Him, and He is always and fully in me.

This means that I no longer have to long for Him. I don't have to sing songs full of longing, such as "I Just Want to Be Where You Are." In our church, we have rewritten that song; we call it "I Just Love to Be Where You Are."

Try to imagine it. All of creation, all of the universe, is inside of God. And all of God is inside of me. It's mind-blowing.

One of the things we are learning in our home church is how to be more aware of God's presence within us, every moment of every day. It's a glorious place to be. A wonderful book exploring this concept is Practicing His Presence by Brother Lawrence and Frank Laubach. I highly recommend it--you'll want to read it once a year. If you'll notice, it's listed as the Library of Spiritual Classics, Vol. 1. In our church we read through this library of spiritual classics--they are essential to a growing knowledge of the Lord.