Why I Went to Church – and Why I Still Go

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Local Church

Special to United Methodist Insight | March 16, 2026

Church: I grew up going to a fairly large, middle-class, largely white suburban church congregation. We were United Methodists, and we sang all the old traditional hymns and the old traditional creeds. When I was young, we had a really good minister who preached in a way that even a 7 year old could like his sermons. Later we had another minister whose sermons were (to me) not all that inspiring. But I went anyway because my parents wanted me to.

I might have lost interest in church except for three things.

First, in our small groups and classes, we studied the Bible, and I liked that because when I learned about Jesus, I discovered my mind changing for the better. Growing up in a white “conservative” culture, I was encouraged to believe that we white people were the best, and to be prejudiced against other races and groups of people. Jesus, on the other hand, in church, taught me that all people everywhere are God’s children, and equal. Equal. Jesus taught me that I was to love my neighbor, and that every person everywhere was my neighbor. That was a better way to think and to live than swallowing the lie that white people (or any other racial/tribal group) were better than anyone else. Since Jesus was my Lord I believed…him. That made going to church worthwhile. I learned the best way.

I also liked church because many of my male friends were there. We talked and played games and went to school with each other. We learned to do things together and to value each other.

And I liked church for another very important reason. Girls. I was attracted to girls and yet girls were a wonderful mystery to me. So in church I made friends with girls, learned to respect and value them, and dreamed of romance because of them, all things that God intended.

When I went off to college, I was at first isolated and it was easy to stop going to church much and to be lazy on Sundays. I suspect that part was that i was rebelling a bit against the parenting I had received, so moving away from church was a need to be free from the obligations of my youth, and decide things on my own.

But then one day I realized that I was missing some things in my life. I missed not only learning about Jesus, and his better ways, but doing things in service for Jesus. I missed the camaraderie of my male buddies. And I missed the girls, too; boy did I miss the girls.

So I started going back to church. I immediately got into not only learning groups, but service projects. I discovered that serving others through the church gave me a core reason to live, for it is in giving to others that we receive the real joy of living. Truth. I was back with my brothers. And I was back with women whose values I shared; one of them became my wife with whom I have shared over 50 years together, both of us serving God and our neighbors together.

I have friends that say they don’t like “organized religion.” I have found that if I wasn’t a part of organized religion my religion was disorganized. I needed the strengths that other people could give me in order to build my own spirituality within. I know that some people try to be spiritual on their own, but after a while many of them find that to be an unfulfilling endeavor. I need other people I trust in order talk to and to to sort all out, thinking about my own spirituality. That’s what a good church with small groups can do. And I find that many churches have service projects I can invest in, in a team effort, to do all kinds of things to help people. It is much harder, at least for me, and a lot lonelier, to try to do service projects on your own.

Is there a downside to being a part of a church? There can be, just as there can be a downside to being a part of any group of people. Humans can be weird in any group. People have unrealistic expectations, disappointment, and hypocrisy. But that goes on at times in any human group. When I have found myself in a church group like that, i have simply pulled up stakes and found another one. Sayonara. But most of the time, like any member of any human group, I have just accepted the natural human imperfections, adjusted, and gone on. Nothing is perfect, but in a dedicated church many times most things can feel like if they’re not perfect, they’re pretty wonderful anyway. You grow, you build, and you love. God opens the mind and the heart.

These days we go to different churches at times. Last Sunday we went to an African-American church where the love and the joy was infectious, and the music just danced your heart away. We often go to a largely-white church 25 miles from our house where the people are inclusive of every kind of person, the preaching and the worship are wonderful, and the small-group teaching is outstanding. And sometimes we go to a church that continually experiments with new ways to help people find worship meaningful. Occasionally we visit a church that does a wonderful job of providing food for the poor.

I will always be a part of the church as long as I live. I am a follower of Jesus and Jesus created the church for us to be a part of. Yes, Jesus wants you in his church. i’m glad he did it that way. He knew what he was doing. Somewhere out there is a good church that’s right for you. I commend it to you, as a place not where you consume, but where you serve. If you choose wisely, it will bring something wonderful to your core as a person.

The Rev. Ed Williamson is a retired clergy member of the New Mexico Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This post is republished with permission from his Facebook page.