A Wonderful Church Home, Mychelle Britt

In June of 1992 I gave my life to the Lord and began to read the Bible and look for a church home. At that time I was living in Washington D.C. and I went to several places, but never really found the spiritual nourishment I needed. In August of 1992 I moved to Austin, Texas. I had been praying for a group of people who could help me to gain a foundation in the Word and who were really pursuing Him. In Washington, D.C., though I had enjoyed some fellowship, there was a lot of mixture of Christ with politics. I only wanted Christ! The second week I was in Austin I was invited to a meeting of the church in Austin. I had been going to a Bible study at a family's house near the campus. They attended the meetings of the church in Austin. The Bible studies were wonderful and I finally felt like I was being fed, growing and gaining a foundation in my Christian life.

The first meeting I attended was a little strange as I had grown up in the Catholic church where most of my prayers, etc. were from memory and during mass we only responded at the “appropriate” times. The meetings of the local church were very verbal, spontaneous and living. When the brothers and sisters shared testimonies and spoke from the Word the congregation would respond with, “Amen!” I had never heard this before. What did it mean to say, “Amen!” What was a saint? I soon began to learn through my own questioning and reading the Word that “Amen” means “I agree” or “That's right” (1 Corinthians 14:16). A saint is a sanctified one born of God (1 Corinthians 1:2). NOT what I had learned in the Catholic church. I am a saint! In the church meetings I thoroughly enjoyed the portions of Christ that all of the brothers and sisters shared. When I began to attend the meetings of the local church we were going over the book of Romans. I felt as if that book of the Bible had become living and I was even having the opportunity to walk into and participate in many of the verses I was reading. Just as in our own body, every member must function, so also in the Body of Christ every member must function. For ten years I had merely sat in a pew not functioning nor even knowing how to function. Finally, I was learning to pray, learning to confess, learning to prophesy (1 Corinthians 14). I was witnessing the functioning Body of Christ and becoming a functioning member myself. Wonderful!

Not only in the church meetings, but also in the homes of the families I was able to observe the living of the Christians who were meeting as the church in Austin. There were two particular families that met with the church in Austin whom I had the privilege to spend a significant amount of time. This was a great supply to me spiritually and I finally felt that I was being built with other members of the Body of Christ in a practical way. I guess that I was very impressed with the marriages I observed of the brothers and sisters I was around. My own parents divorced when I was a young girl and so I had never really seen a proper relationship, nor did I have much of a positive opinion of men. One of the families who shepherded me visited me near the campus at a co-op where I lived. They brought their newborn baby with them when they came to visit. This visit came about two weeks after arriving in Austin and I was still uneasy with my new surroundings. I was quite touched that a family would go out of their way to visit me on the campus. They invited me to their home for dinner. Another family had me in their home and allowed me to use their computer to do my papers for school. My first semester at The University of Texas at Austin I had to fly back to Washington, D.C. for a conference related to work. I flew in a day early and was able to stay with a family of the church in Dunn Loring. It was just what I needed. Not only did they take care of my transportation needs, etc. but their testimony had a profound impact on me. I had been enjoying my fellowship with the church in Austin to a great extent but deep down there was a fear that this was too good to be true. In the world, satisfaction is temporary. Would this enjoyment be temporary? This couple was older and had been meeting with the local church for quite some time and they were so fresh and living. The Lord was still as real to them as He was when they were my age. I realized that I really was home. There have been many small times I spent with families and other brothers and sisters in the local church that caused me to grow spiritually and even helped to heal parts of my soul that had been damaged by an abnormal childhood. Out of this care has been a certain degree of reconciliation between myself and my parents and other family members. I have learned to know the Lord's love, not just individually, but also the love of the Lord in and through His living and functioning Body as expressed in the church practically.