I love the people at my church, St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church. We do a lot of things in the community like participate in Habitat for Humanity builds, support of a local food pantry including working in the soup pantry, community outreach projects such as school supplies and clothing for children who are being raised by their grandmothers and a lot of other projects throughout the year. As others have said, the Sunday Eucharist and the Liturgy are both enlightening and uplifting to me. I get a lot out of the readings, hymns, choral music and sermons. We are a small but growing Parish and it’s just a great place for me to center my life.
I work nights & have had some health challenges that have taken out some of my energy so it’s not unusual that I will go Sun morn & sleep pretty much through the service. Everyone understands & accepts that. On a good day, I’ll sleep through the praise music & choir singing for 30-50 minutes (yes, that’s correct) and be awake for the sermon. If it’s (monthly) Communion Sunday, I really want to be awake for that at least.
So if I’m as likely to sleep as not, why do I go? (Besides the monthly partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Jesus)
Because when I do sleep, it’s often the best rest I’ve had in days. I’m in a warm secure environment where I get my most relaxed; the music (even the happy clappy stuff) reinforces that; even when I sleep through the reading of the Word & the sermon, I figure some of it sinks in by osmosis; and I really like the people.
Jesus says I gotta assemble with His people. He doesn’t say I HAVE to stay awake.
Why don’t I just stay home & sleep? Because if I stayed home, I’d be addicted to this infernal gadget!
I would LIKE to find a church (grew up Catholic, despised it, stopped going except for weddings and funerals except for a few years when our daughter got the baptism, communion, confirmation - better to be safe than sorry, right, lol!). I don’t know how to pick one, or where to go. I’ve dropped in at a couple Baptist churches near here and they seem nice, but they don’t seem to offer anything for adults except Bible study classes. I’d like to DO something - bake sales, food pantries, visiting, rather than sitting in a crowd of strangers listening to sermons … zzzzz… There is a big mega-church around here that draws mostly suburban families, I don’t know if they’d want or need a single middle-aged woman. I’d like to go to a friendly place, a place that welcomes everyone.
In case anyone cares…
When I say I’m spiritually complex, I mean that though I think that Jesus of Nazareth is only slightly more historical than Kal-El of Krypton, I nevertheless find a lot of value in the myths and stories that have sprung up about him. (Along with a lot of hateful crap, unfortunately. Damn you, Paul of Tarsus!) I use the idea of the character of Jesus, most especially but not exclusively as seen in the Sermon on the Mount, as a way of ordering my thoughts about the world.
I’m too lazy to find it right now, but there was a bit in the latest Reader’s Digest where the guy they were interviewing said that why church-goers live longer than those who don’t isn’t some fuzzy faith thing, but rather because they have a network that can support them.
I don’t go to church, mostly because I don’t like getting up in the morning, plus the whole atheist thing (yes, I know, I could go to a Unitarian service, but again, I don’t like getting up). Personally I think that going to some sort of services is good for kids, because it teaches them how to sit still. =^__^=
FriarTed, my dad falls asleep in services and he was a pastor!
I thought about this thread in church this morning. Today wasn’t a particularly good day - my dearly beloved child behaved as if she had never seen a service before, refusing to sit still, talking loudly during prayers, and throwing a fit at the idea of putting her quarter in the offering plate. (She’s 9, and has attended this congregation all her life, just about.) Deeply frustrating, and at one point I sat back and thought, “Why am I doing this again?”
-
Community. Everything raspberry hunger said so nicely above. People know my child and her issues, and smiled and someone gave her an extra quarter so she could have one to keep. She can visit during the service with other people, and they are genuinely glad to see her. In addition, there are people who care about me, and have been there to support me in my time of need, and will happily accept my help when they need it. (The accepting is the hard part. A community that can accept help from each other is a vibrant place.)
-
It is one of the least segregated places in my life. I made a commitment several years ago to increase the racial diversity in my personal life (as part of a congregational commitment to combat racism). That really opened my eyes to the percentage of people of color around me. I don’t think I can explain this well in one paragraph, but it’s important to me.
-
Outreach and service. I try to support worthy causes myself, but I find that the congregation does a better job. We both provide direct help, and work in advocacy programs to make long-term, systemic changes. For a small and perpetually disorganized bunch, we do a lot of good in the world.
-
Music. This is the place in my life where I get to participate in music every time. As far as I’m concerned, the Gospel According to Bach is God’s clearest revelation.
-
Grace. I’m putting this last, but it is first, second, and always. In my life, my head, my family, my world, grace is an alien concept. In church, I’m suffused with it, and it carries me through everything else. In comes in Word, Sacrament, and community, is spoken, acted out and just sensed. I truly cannot imagine any kind of life without it.
Lutheran (raised Missouri, now ELCA)
Fellowship, music (as said above), praise (I do this alone, in my daily life but according to scriptures, we’re 'sposed to "make a joyful noise), do good works. learn things about your faith.
Now, that all being said, I’m a TERRIBLE church goer. I’m kind of a private worshipper and generally attend organized religion mostly with my family when they come to visit, or I visit them.
For me, it is about family, the family of God.
I do lots in church - music, social action, homechurch, early morning prayer, mens group…
but it is also the one place that I can just be
I can turn up at morning prayer, tell my brothers that I am struggling, and know that their prayers will lift me up and that they will hold me in their thoughts over the day.
I can finish a service having lead the singing, and someone will tell me how uplifted they feel having worshipped the living God, and the fact that I thought I was rubbish doesn’t matter, because (for them, at least) God turned up.
I can spend most of sunday in the rain fencing a garden in the rain for a solo mother who had been unable care for her home and family, and who is now getting back on her own feet, supported by the church.
I can deliver a pile of leaflets, to enable kids in a slum in Nairobi to get an education and healthcare that they would not have if we (the residents of a small Hampshire village) didn’t do something.
Thats why I go to church, and why I keep going to church in spite of my frustrations, doubts, ups and downs. God won’t let me go, so I will hang on.
Si
I go because it’s kind of a “spirituality reset” button for me. If I’ve missed a week or two I start to feel very uncomfortable but unable to put my finger on why, then I attend mass and it sort of settles me. I like the ability to pray, meditate, or just reflect while surrounded by a community of like-minded souls, and while in the house of God.
I also really like our monsignor- he always has such interesting, topical homilys, which is really the only variable from one parish to another. Except maybe for the music, which is also very enjoyable at our church.
My kids are actually getting a lot out of mass too, despite their apparent reluctance to go. They complain about it when we’re heading out the door but they enthusiastically participate while we’re there, so I’m convinced the complaints are just an act.
[ul][li]To receive the Eucharist []Keeps me focused []To direct my growth in ways I want to go To assist others in doing the same[/ul]I think I am fairly unusual in that I don’t care for most of the music we do. And my pastor is a wonderful person, but his sermons are only good for the first ten minutes or so. Once he hits point #5, my eyes tend to glaze over. But that is sort of like when my uncle told his stories of WWII for the seventeenth time - I expect it, and don’t mind it. [/li]
Regards,
Shodan
Does it have to be only church?? :rolleyes:
I go to temple periodically even though I am pretty much a hard atheist because it’s comforting. I like the routine, the sonorous chanting, and the simple procedures of singing along, praying to the fire, receiving my sacred fruit, and putting a dollar or two in the kitty. I like the smell of incense, and like looking at the statues of the gods.
I am a bit of a spiritualist, however, so it feels comforting on multiple levels.
UU attending a UU church.
We have a very nice community. I know that if I need that community, they would be there for me - as we’ve been there for so many others.
Our minister kicks ass. Her sermons are wonderful and really make you think. She is a self described agnostic. In church, I laugh, I cry, and I become a better person.
We have a wonderful choir and very talented musicians. Music is almost always a treat. And the variety of music in our church is astounding, from chanting to singing bowls to classical piano to a band of twelve year olds playing Back in Black.
The other members of our congregation leak talent as well - whether its a craft fair or someone standing in for the minister telling stories, or the people teaching kids RE, or the constant and revolving arts show happening in the hallways.
The congregation is socially active. And reminds me to be so as well.
Hey, the Lord helps those who help themselves, right? 
As to me, I’ve been attending church for as far back as I can remember, but some weeks I ask myself the same question, so thank you, OP, for the thread, the responses from my fellow Christian Dopers pretty much cover how I feell but have forgotten that I feel that way.
Um…didn’t you read the edit to the OP? I specifically included synagogue, mosque, & other. (I assume by temple you mean Buddhist services rather than Jewish, yes?)
Obviously not. Sorry, feeling a bit contrary this morning. 
And by temple, I mean Hindu services - mandir.
That’s okay. I mean, yeah, such impertinence cannot be tolerated, swift and terrible vengeance must be taken, genital-eating caterpillars, fate worse than death–and all that crap. but you know I’m not going to do anything to you.
Pittsburgh, however, shall suffer, and that will be on your head.
I didn’t know that Buddhists ever referred to mandir by the English term; I’ve always heard mandir. You have thus fought my ignorance.
s/church/synagogue/, and this fits for me. (The first bit means “substitute synagogue for church”, for non-geeks)
So it’s YOUR fault that the snow hasn’t let up since New Year’s Day! And that the Steelers didn’t make the playoffs, so Costco was crowded when I went there yesterday.
It’s possible that I may have spent the entire month of August harassing the Cold Miser in methods including but not limited to releasing 3,951,482 rabid gerbils on his property, and equally possible that in vengeance he unleashed the current cold snap on the northern hemisphere. But I don’t see how that’s my fault.
ETA: Why would the Steelers not making the playoffs result in Costco being crowded?
But I’m not Buddhist! I don’t even know how Buddhist got into the conversation. I go to a Hindu temple; Hindu services. Mandir is not Buddhist at all, as far as I know.
You forget that I’m frequently stupid.