I Miss My Old Church But I'll Never Go Back

Being a convert is no cakewalk.

You have to get used to new people, personalities, ordinances, doctrines that come with being LDS but one thing that always seems to be the hardest for me as a new convert to get used to.

I MISS THE MUSIC!

While I love the hymns we sing at our branch when I was growing up church wasn't church unless you were getting deafened by the sound system and getting your eardrums ruptured. I remember going to sit right up by the speakers and enjoying watching my hair dance in time to the music.

 Sometimes I miss the days of prayers and worship where you would have three or more people on stage trying to be the next Destiny's Child and trying to sing over each other.

Sometimes I find myself missing praise breaks that would last forever and people dancing out of their hairpieces while feeling the spirit.

What I don't miss is the disconnect I felt with the gospel.

My faith has never been as strong going to 'normal church'. I know normal church is a little bit of a stretch on words as 'Mormon church' is the exact same thing. However I say that to explain  why despite the lack of loud music at our church I won't probably return to my old one.

Being sick at my old church showed me that despite all Christian efforts that no one cared whether you lived or died that all you were good for was idle gossip and a few coins in a collection plate. We were useful until we reached our expiry dates then tossed aside and forgotten like yesterday's garbage.

My grandmother had become inactive years before I left my old church in 2008 due to illness. It surprised me that after almost 30 years of church attendance that somehow she had fallen through the cracks and had been left to lay by the wayside. Nobody from church came to visit or give her communion and with each passing year her hurt would deepen.

I remember sitting as a teenager at church wondering why I needed to be at church if I would be forgotten as soon as I took a step outside of the church walls. Was it even worth it?

Although its been almost ten years since the day I attended my old church, I never felt the need  to go back. I could only watch someone get into the spirit a few hundred times before it got boring. I could only be deafened by the sound system so many times until I lost my ability to hear.

I needed a mute button.

I didn't need the theatrics of gospel. I didn't need to be having someone's hands on me forcing me down so they can claim to cast spirits/demons /sickness out of my body. I needed to mute everything around me and focus on the gospel.

I need that time during sacrament to have my quiet time with Heavenly Father. I needed to be around people who cared more about me as a person rather than what I could pay for tithings. I needed someone to call me when I got sick and didn't show up for church. (the sisters call me a lot) I needed more than what my old church was offering.

And I do believe I've found it with my new church and my new church family.