Who Am I? I Am Rooted and Growing.

For the largest part of my adult life, I lived in a military community and quickly learned early on the difficulties that come with locating a new church to attend with every new duty station.  Christian military families live a lifestyle that requires them to move from base to base, often country to country making it difficult to root themselves into a home church.

Often it takes months to locate a good local church to attend on a regular basis.  Once the family becomes comfortable with the church and begins to settle in, it is time to move again.  Many military families do not even continue to try to look for a church home at the next duty station.  

Our society as a whole has become mobile.  Think about it.  My father worked for one company most of his adult life before retiring.  Today, jobs change and career paths change regularly.  The average person will work for many companies in several fields before reaching the age of retirement.  These job changes often require changes in location, uprooting the family, changing schools and churches.    

It is important that believers plant themselves in a local church family.  

Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.  (14)  They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing;  (15)  To shew that the LORD is upright: he is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in him.  Psalms 92:13-15

Why belong to a local church? 

"Because it gives us a purpose to live for, people to live with, principles to live by, a profession to live out, and power to live on.  There's no other place on earth where you can find all these benefits in one place.  --(unknown)

Most importantly, it means that we are plugged in, we have a shepherd to guide us, we have regular nourishment for our spiritual growth, and we have fellowship with other believers.  Our lives increase in every area when we are actively committed to the local church body.