Back in church

[Brian]

went back to church this morning, first time in over two years! had a great day, God is so awesome!

[oletimer]

????????????????????????????????????????????????????? ?

[dolfan]

I'm super-duper pleased with that news, Brian. God is good, for sure. Thanks for posting that so we can praise Him with you.

[Pastor Gary]

Tell us more. Be a "Secret Shopper" and give us your feedback.

[Brian]

ok I guess that wasn't enough info. lol

(brief history)

I was pretty much raised in the cogop, well, at least that was my upbringing.

Around 1995 my wife and I were very active in the local cogop in Bogue, NC. We were there for about 5 or 6 years and for one reason or another just stopped going.

We still tried to maintain our walk with Christ, but for me it wasn't such a good walk. We moved back to Roanoke, Va in 2000 and shortly after my life took a horrible turn for the worse. I was heavily involved in drugs and it dang near took my life, literally. And has taken me years to stabilize and get back to some resemblance of normalcy.
Threw much struggle and lots of time and prayer I made my way back out of that horrible place and back with my family and things have been going really well for the last several years.

Still something was missing......restoration and fellowship!
So just over two years ago we stared going to a cog in the area. Really great church, not too big, not too small. We went maybe a half dozen times and low and behold we slacked off.
Things were ok in the home, we still tried (feebly I might add) to pray and read and study the word, but again, something seemed lacking.
Thank God for Jude2 which I have been apart of in one fashion or another for well over 10 years. You could definitely say that Jude2 has been my church through all the good and bad. I love you guys! (and gals)

We have been saying time and time again that we were going back, even got dressed a few times to only turn around and go home. Well this past Sun I woke up and said NO MORE EXCUSES! Went to church and was richly blessed by what seemed to be the perfect message of commitment and "joining the race".

I am so glad I did! Been worshiping and praising God almost every moment since.

[Paully_44]

Still something was missing......restoration and fellowship!

Glad you have found a place that is helping with those 2 extremely important items.

[Brian]

Tell us more. Be a "Secret Shopper" and give us your feedback.

No problem...keep in mind that I haven't been that many times. And the times we did go it was just during Sun morning worship service.

The church is called Celebration COG, they are a Church of God Cleveland, TN church.

The first thing that anyone going here will immediately notice is that they are probably one of the most ethnic and culturally diverse churches that you will ever be in. The Roanoke Times (local paper) ran a story about it.
(From two, almost three years ago there attendance seemed to be down from around 300 to about 200.)

There age ranges is a nice balanced mixed of all ages....and guess what? they seem to get along really well in spite of generation differences.
The underling theme for everyone there seems to be love!

Sorry I wasn't more detailed.....want to go a time or two more before I give an update. And while I am writing this I have literally fell asleep at the computer about 10 times! Sooooo tired! Will definitely come back with more details. sorry PG