On Sunday, February 18, 2024, our first Sunday in Lent, Rev. Ryan Wallace's sermon, Everything Good About God Is True: Choosing Faith, asked the question: Why do I choose to be a Christian?
“I choose to believe that, in life and in death, I belong to God. I choose to join with others as God’s gathered. I choose to believe in the activity of the Spirit, moved and moving. I choose to believe in the grace made real by Jesus Christ. I choose generosity because God has been generous to me. As we are sent, as we are called, as we choose to go into the world, we go with hands and feet that are just; we go with souls and spirits that are kind; and we go led by the God who sends us, calls us back, and sends us again.”
For many past generations of Americans, being Christian wasn’t exactly a “choice.” If you were raised in a Christian family, the data shows that you would almost certainly identify as a Christian as an adult (95%). But beginning with those born in the 1940s, there has been a shift away from Christian identity. As recently as the early 1990s, about 90% of U.S. adults identified as Christians. But today, about two-thirds of adults are Christians. Being Christian is now a real choice.
And for those of us who choose to be Christian, it’s more important than ever to be able to articulate what we believe to be true about God. It’s easy to criticize evangelical Christians and distance ourselves from their theology. It’s harder to say what we actually believe. However “the best critique of the bad is the practice of the better” (Richard Rohr). Throughout Lent, we will explore key theological questions and biblical texts as we ponder: What do I really believe about God?
We invite you to join us at Fairmount for Sunday Worship at 8:30 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. every Sunday.
We also live-stream our 11:00am worship service to connect with our online community.
You can find Fairmount’s live-stream worship at https://fpccle.org/online-worship/, on our Facebook Page and YouTube Channel