The Importance of Community: Why I Have Decided to Stay Roman Catholic

As many of you know, for the past 3 years I have been in discernment of whether to leave the Roman Catholic Church for the Anglican Communion.

As of this moment, I can say that I feel at peace about staying in the Catholic Church.

This doesn't mean, however, that I still don't have the same disagreements that I expressed in the past. It doesn't mean that those disagreements are not important to me anymore. What it does mean is that, at the present moment, I don't feel like these disagreements are enough for me to leave the Roman Catholic Church.

Why Not?
One of the main reasons why I decided to stay is the fact that the church is more than a simple institution I belong to. The Roman Catholic Church is more than just a club that I can easily drop membership to if it no longer fit my ideas.

The Church, above all of that, is a community. And I love this community.

Jesus call us to community, and this community requires a commitment that is nurtured through love and respect. When Jesus says that "my mother and my brother are those who hear the word of God and do it" (Luke 8:21) I believe He is putting a high level of commitment to His community.

When I grew up with my family, I didn't agree with all the rules of the house. I didn't agree with how everything was managed. I don't think there is anyone on this earth who can say that they did.

But I love my family, and it is that love that has kept me a member of the family to this day.

And so it is with my community of faith, the Roman Catholic Church. The fact that I don't agree with everything that is going on with it doesn't even begin to detract from the fact that I love this community. I love many of its traditions and wisdom, and I am willing to be under it out of love.

This love also encourages me to take a second look at its rules and regulations, and while I'm not saying that I will blindly follow them, I will respect them out of love and respect for the community.

When you live under the same roof with your family and/or community, you are bound to find house rules. These rules have helped the community in many ways. You may not agree with each and every single one of them, but once you decide to stay, and once you love this community, you respect its rules not from a simple sense of obligation, but by the freedom that this loves gives.

Individualism & Yelp Reviews of Churches
I believe that our desire to find a church that can satisfy our ideals and our niches is just a symptom of our emphasis on individualism. We church shop as if we are choosing our internet provider.

In an individualistic society, you are encouraged to fulfill your own dreams and ideals, and this can transfer over the way we do church.

Church, however, is not a place where we can have our needs met, a place where we worship alongside people who share our ideals.

Church is not a group of individuals, each looking for their often conflicting fulfillment of goals and ideals. If this is your idea of church then you will be sorely disappointed.

The Church is a community. In this community you come not to get something for your fulfillment, but you come to give yourself and your gifts, and to receive nourishment and support from the gifts of others. In this community, you come not so you can achieve your personal goals, but to love and serve.

In this community you come not just to nurture and build your individual body, but to nurture and build (or better said become) the body of Christ.