As a senior in high school, I committed myself to Columbia in part because it was less than a ten minute walk from my home church in America. Although I had only attended this church for five years before moving to China, my parents were members there and remained dear friends with many of its people.
Preparing to plunge into a secular university as a Christian, I knew I needed God’s covenant gathering as a “buttress of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). I also desired a community to stir me to “love and good works” in defiance of the stress culture students often bear (Heb. 10:24-25). Having read several essays about the church’s witness as a tangible community, I was thrilled at the opportunity to know and be known across generations, and I longed to entrench my roots beside older believers. My home church—full of familiar faces and kind hearts—seemed an ideal haven.
Yet in my quest to find spiritual kinship, I’d unknowingly misplaced the true purpose of church; attending a local body had become a means to find tribal belonging more than spiritual growth. I’d wade through months of discontent before God reckoned me to this fact: his church breathes to exalt his glory rather than to satisfy my desire for belonging (Eph. 3:21). Through this difficult season, the Lord also gifted me with a richer and deeper church community than I could have ever imagined—and all to the tune of his stunning, unmerited grace.
Gospel Clarity
I tried hard to find my ideal community freshman fall. As an introvert, I would force myself to stay past service at least half an hour to get to know people. Although part of me understood I was being irrational, I clung to unreasonable expectations of instant kinship. Family friends invited me to dinner and reached out with small acts of kindness, yet I still felt dissatisfied. For an entire semester, I drifted anxiously between aimless social encounters, aware of my misguided heart, yet unable to stop craving my idealized community.
Still, I lived for Sunday mornings. Each service overflowed with worship, from the hymns we sang, to the liturgy we spoke, to the sermons we listened to. Surrounded by fellow saints, I received the gospel with clarity and freshness week after week, which swelled my heart with a renewed love for God. Although it didn’t soothe my desire to be known, my church retained its true purpose of expressing the Lord’s mercy to sinners like me. I still longed for earthly belonging, yet God’s lesson rang clear: above all, I needed Sundays to remind me of my priceless adoption to him (Eph. 1:5).
Saved by Grace
Over winter break, I decided that I needed to take greater action if I was to truly commit myself to the church I loved. My plan came in three parts: start serving, attend a small group, and—Lord willing—find a mentor.
During my spring semester, I shadowed the AV team, arriving early to hook up snaking wires and attend to the slides. There, tucked away at the chapel’s back corner, I started small friendships with fellow volunteers. Perhaps more importantly, I learned to love my church through the commitment of service. Although shadowing AV was nothing glamorous, showing up each Sunday morning let me glimpse the wealth of preparation poured into each service. I became aware of just how many people imbued time and love into morning worship, which helped me understand what a privilege it was to invest my own love in turn.
Yet an even greater blessing awaited. In March, I was invited to a small group of middle-aged couples. Visiting their fellowship one Friday night, I quickly fell in love with their raw honesty and profound desire to follow the Lord. They proclaimed Christ in their decades-wrought love for him, stirring me to long for the same maturity and faithfulness (Col 1:28). Although I often came in with stress from the school year, their tender humility wooed me to rest in the Lord’s love, to honor that time as his alone. In the mellowed sanctity of our host family’s home, I finally found the belonging I’d yearned for—and in nothing less than a shared longing for Christ. Through my small group, I also got to know a kind and thoughtful older woman whom I asked to mentor me. I can’t wait to grow with her in the years to come.
A Greater Mercy
I am deeply grateful for the grace I received that spring, especially the love of my home fellowship group. Yet the greatest mercy of all was the semester God asked me to wait for his provision. Only then did I come to know him as my sole hope and sustainer. Only then did I become indebted to his grace so that the church I loved might become my own. Truly, that challenging fall taught me to adopt the words of Isaiah in saying: “the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and he exults himself to show you mercy” (Isa. 30:18).
My perfect church does not exist; I learned this the hard way. Yet gatherings of redeemed sinners flourish all around the world. In whatever shape or form the Lord intends, local churches help us to receive the gospel just as Jesus revealed it: to the praise of his glorious grace (Eph. 1:6).
Emma Chung is a sophomore in Columbia College majoring in English. She loves walking in Riverside Park and eating Chinese food.