Sunday morning sitting at the IHOP in Casselberry, watching the church across the street as the cars come in and out of the parking lot, I miss the weekly gathering of friends and believers. Well, number one, I’m not used to being out and about on a Sunday morning anymore. It’s been five years since that was part of my life, maybe even six. I stopped going to church some time, maybe a year, before I left Long Beach in 2008. I guess I got swept up in my own personal drama and the church I was leading music at deciding that they were going to have someone else do that job. Funny that I remember walking away from the church long before I left Southern California. Both things seemed to come way too easily.

I briefly dabbled in finding a church when I moved to Florida but quickly decided that this was an opportunity to define myself differently. I may have quickly decided that but acting on it has been an altogether different think. In a word, I haven’t budged. I attended a few meetings at different meetup.com groups that were about “free thought” and intellectualism. But nothing stuck. I’m reminded of Alain de Botton’s TED talk on Atheism 2.0 where he said that we need to recognize the legitimate cultural needs that believers get from their weekly church attendance and seasonal celebrations. I missed getting together with my fellows on a regular basis to practice good community. I guess it’s getting to be time for me to do something about that.