Why I Love my Church

Hi. I'm linking to Kelly's "Show Us Your Life" theme today - my church.

Since moving to Dallas 9.5 years ago, I've been going to First Baptist Dallas. It was the 2nd church I visited here when I arrived in Dallas in July 2001, and I've never looked back. At the time, my two priorities were an active Singles' department and an orchestra in which I could play my oboe. Though now I'm not a part of either ministry, they both blessed me at that particular place in my life. In the past, I've also been a member of our amazing choir, but am taking a break right now due to low energy levels & Fibro.

Being a member of a large "mega-church" is never what I thought I'd do. Yet, due to my involvement in Sunday School (i.e., Bible Study class) and the music ministry, my church has never felt too big. I must admit that at first when I was no longer on the platform either in the choir loft or in the orchestra, it took me a while to get used to be a member of the congregation. But friendly fellow congregation members made me feel welcome and I settled into my new role, for this season of my life.

For several years now, by far my favorite ministry to be a part of is the Preschool Ministry. At first I worked in the 1.5 year old room, but after a little while they were getting too heavy for me, so I went to the baby baby room, the newborns. Depending on when the parents feel comfortable leaving them for a couple hours, the babies are anywhere from a few weeks to a few months when they first come to our room. It's amazing to see them grow and develop and it fills a major void in my life, a baby to love.

Enough about my involvement in my church - I need to share also the other ministries we have. There are too many to mention, but some of my favorites are the Downtown Pregnancy Center, the Dallas Life Foundation (for homeless), our missions' forcus, our Celebrate Recovery classes, the Womens' ministry, evangelism training, and our music ministry from 3 year olds on up. It's so amazing to see the "young people" lead us in worship on Sunday evenings.

But I've left out the most important part of a church - the preaching and sharing of the Word of God. Our Pastor, Robert Jeffress, unashamedly proclaims the Truth each week. He's been at our church for several years now. He's not only an eloquent speaker, but he has the ability to help us apply the inerrant Word of God to our personal lives. And if there is no application of Biblical truth in your life, then the best preaching in the world has failed.

While my church has been around for 150 years, God is still working at First Dallas! We are in the midst of a huge building program that will transform our facilities, but more important, have an even more extensive ministry to those in our community.

If you are in the Dallas area and are looking for a church, I hope you will consider mine. Please visit our website for newcomers, http://www.explorefirst.org/ or our main website, http://www.firstdallas.org/. Thanks for reading this!