My Madison Community

I found a church!

It's so hard to "church shop." I even hate that term because it feels like I'm analyzing how well a church will be beneficial to me. This is important, but it feels selfish at the same time. You also have to look at the ways in which you can bless a community. It's a tough balance between getting what you know you need and being willing to give to a church that is imperfect (as they all are).

I've found a church that I feel home at. I'm so content here and it feels so right. I have no desire to look anywhere else. I leave every Sunday inspired and it's real church. It's Damascus Road Church. They embody what I feel church should be.

The preaching gets my heart every week. It's a bold kind of preaching that gets in trouble because it challenges the way church is. It's the kind of word from God that calls us out of our comfortable buildings.

"We are gonna be a people who remembers the poor."

"I think the church is a joke if we don't do something."

Damascus isn't pristine. In fact, there's a whole slew of different kinds of people. Of all ages. Of all backgrounds and lifestyles. And they come as they are ready to be different. We are all ready to be challenged out of the ways that we're living. Even if we feel we're in line with Christ, we want to be better because we know we still fall short.

What's becoming DR's mission statement is part of Isaiah 58:

⁶ "Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:

to loose the chains of injustice

and untie the cords of the yoke,

to set the oppressed free

and break every yoke?

⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry

and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—

when you see the naked, to clothe him,

and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,

and your healing will quickly appear;

then your righteousness will go before you,

and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.

⁹ Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;

you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

"If you do away with the yoke of oppression,

with the pointing finger and malicious talk,

¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry

and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,

then your light will rise in the darkness,

and your night will become like the noonday.

¹¹ The LORD will guide you always;

he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land

and will strengthen your frame.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like a spring whose waters never fail.

¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins

and will raise up the age-old foundations;

you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,

Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

¹³ "If you keep your feet from breaking the Sabbath

and from doing as you please on my holy day,

if you call the Sabbath a delight

and the LORD's holy day honorable,

and if you honor it by not going your own way

and not doing as you please or speaking idle words,

¹⁴ then you will find your joy in the LORD,

and I will cause you to ride on the heights of the land

and to feast on the inheritance of your father Jacob."

The mouth of the LORD has spoken.