Do you see yourself as spiritual? Do you think everyone is? Not all are believers, but all are made in my image, and are spiritual on that basis. For this reason all have the basic concerns for a sense of identity, a need to belong to a community, and to lead a life of meaning and purpose. These are unavoidable questions that everyone faces, although some find better answers than others. Can you find answers in all three of these areas in one place? You can answer all of them in a church.

How do you describe the most powerful spiritual experiences of your life? Do you say that they are mountaintop experiences? When everyday experiences are wearing you down, how do you describe these experiences to others? Do you say that you are going through a valley? These are common expressions, but even a casual examination will reveal that people live in valleys and they don’t live on top of mountains. What is the conclusion to take away from this? If your faith is real it has to work in the everyday life you actually live. This is possible if you have eyes to see and ears to hear.

Have you heard that beauty is in the eye of the beholder? This implies that beauty is subjective. What about ugliness? Is that also in the eye of the beholder? There is more universal agreement on beauty than ugliness, for the tendency is to impute ugliness to those who are not like you, who are outside of your group, who hold different values and customs and manners. By this definition more people are ugly or not, but this is entirely subjective and context driven, and perhaps they feel the same way about you.

Have you ever looked for me? Where would you look? You know where your friends live by their addresses. Do I have an address? Jacob was surprised to find that I was in a random place where he spent the night. Will you find me in church? You can, but you can also hide from me there. Will you find me in the wilderness? If you look for me in the vast woods or plains or mountains you will find me there too. So what is the common theme here? I promised that the Kingdom of God was within you.