One of the joys of moving to a new region, or a new country, is learning the customs of the people. Actually, I love this. I’m not easily bored, and I’m not one of those folks who demand a stream of new experiences in order to feel happy. Really, I’m not. But there’s something about a new place, full of new people, with new ways of doing things and new approaches to life. It just excites me.

So, I’m enjoying learning the cultural niceties of Montgomery, Alabama. This year I’m learning, finally, to adjust my expectations and my activity levels to the calendar of the Deep South. Schools start weeks before Labor Day – when the temperature is still hovering around 100 degrees. I’ve learned that my old habit of going on vacation in August is a bad idea here. There’s too much going on. Best vacation in June. I get it now. I guess it must have something to do with football. I don’t know what it could be, but this is the South and so it MUST have something to do with football.

Right now, we’re living in a weird in-between time. Schools have started, college students have returned to their dorms, and yet church programming doesn’t start until September 8 – Welcome Back Sunday. I love Welcome Back Sunday (or “Where the heck have you been all summer?” Sunday, as I like to call it.)

I came across an article on the Religious News Service website about Welcome Back Sunday. “I couldn’t have put it better myself”, I thought. And so, rather than trying to put it better myself, I thought I’d give you the edited highlight reel.  These are the words of Amy Julia Becker:

Every fall, our family returns to church. We don’t intentionally walk away during the summer months, but between vacations and camp drop-offs and lazy mornings and opportunities to see family and friends, we tend to tie our church attendance to the school calendar.

Come September, we have to remind ourselves why it’s worth it to nudge our teenagers out of bed on a day when they could sleep in. Why get dressed and head out the door to listen to a choir and hear some prayers and sit through a sermon when we could be hiking in the woods?

We keep going to church for all sorts of reasons. There’s the community. We love the intergenerational relationships that don’t come anywhere else. Eating chicken salad and grapes around plastic tables in the basement gives me a sense of connection to all sorts of people I wouldn’t know otherwise. I want our congregation to pray for us when we are in crisis. I want to have a reason to serve at our local soup kitchen. I look forward to seeing whatever child dons the star costume in the annual Christmas pageant.

There’s also the spirituality. I want our kids to be immersed in a tradition that goes back thousands of years. I want to step away from the to-do list of my life and enter a literal sanctuary at least one time each week. I want access to the things that psychologists say bring healing to our bodies, minds and souls — singing together, caring for one another, receiving forgiveness.

And yet. Our kids have birthday parties and soccer games on Sundays. And I would love to get some sleep and take a nice long run or read the paper or drink a cup of tea without any rush. I understand why people walk away when they encounter abuse or hypocrisy within the church. I understand why people would wonder if there is a place for their doubt and disbelief amidst creeds and prayers and praise songs.

Sometimes church is boring. Sometimes it feels superficial. Sometimes it seems irrelevant. But every September, when we walk back in those doors, I remember why we are there.

I don’t return because it makes me a better person. I don’t return because I always believe. I return to church every September because church reminds us of who we are in relation to Jesus.

Christianity rests upon God coming to us in the person of Jesus, to let us know that we are loved and cared for and healed and saved and invited to participate in all the goodness and beauty and grace and joy and love and peace of who God is. Forever. In and through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus.”

As I said, I couldn’t have put it better myself.