So… last week we debuted a new intro video (the initial color flashes get messed up by the youtube compression… but you get the gist).

I wish we could take full credit for it, but the idea came from a combination of my love for the U2 song ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, watching the new U23D movie, and this continual, ringing question in my brain of ‘why do we come to church’?

As I thought about how the video should unfold, I came to the idea of listing all the reasons we come to church, both good and bad.  I initially started with a list of about 10 things.  Problem is that when I flowed out the music to the words, I recognized that I needed about 90 word flashes to come up on the screen… which meant that I had to come up with a list substantially longer than 10.

This led me to dig deeper into what might drive someone to come to church… and what drives me to church.

Some of the things that came to mind were expected… kind of easy… words like:

love | worship | peace | hope | relationship | belonging

And some of the words that came to mind were deeper:

him | her | guilt | desperation | shame | loneliness | acceptance

And so I came to realize that while I may have my own overarching reason why I’ll be at Common Ground today… the reality is that each Sunday is different.

Sometimes, it’s for acceptance, sometimes it’s because of obligation, sometimes it’s because I want to worship, sometimes it’s because of desperation.

I’m glad that our God is big enough to welcome us each week regardless of the reason… and hope that CG is a place where folks feel welcome, regardless of why they’re here.