June 3: Your Beginning

Faith can have many beginnings. It can also have stops, starts, stalls, sideways, idling and just about any other motion imaginable. Think about your own faith story. Were you baptized? Confirmed? Did your faith grow constantly in between or were there bumps in the path?

For me (Jana), church was something that I did on Sundays during the school year because that's the way it was. My family didn't go to church in the summer and I was probably 12 before I knew that there were people who did attend services in the summer. I thought of it more like school/summer vacation.

I had many stops and starts to my faith life. I wanted to be faithful and to believe, but sometimes it wasn't convenient. Does that sound familiar?

For me (Mike), church was always a priority in my family's life -- from my first memories all the way up through high school. When I was in college, it was easy for faith to not be at the top of my list. Through college and for a while after, I would have told you that I was a Christian and I didn't need church or anything else to be one. In those years, my faith was stagnant at best. Since then, I have been finding ways to get closer to God, but it is still very easy for other things to take up more of my time, energy and thoughts.

Part of growing in faith is finding ways to challenge and refresh your faith. What opportunities help you with this? Confirmation, JUMYs, UMYs, Sunday school, mission trips, conversations with friends, fellowship...what are the actions that help you reconnect with your faith? What opportunities do you wish you had, but don't? Where do these faith building activities fall in your priorities?
(5 points if you post a response. 25 points if you post your faith story.)