Why do you have to go to church, my child? I thought I wasn’t going to have to answer that question for a few more years. Maybe even a decade before you started stomping around with teenage eye rolls of disgust when I ask you to get dressed on Sunday morning, and not in those ratty jeans with the holes in the knees, either. But here we are today, already five minutes late and you’re standing at the back door whining in protest, your stubborn feet kicking the mud-caked shoes you refuse to put on so we can scramble into the car. Do you want my answer? Ok. This is why you have to go to church. . . . It’s good for you to go to church. Here’s part of what church means: faith, prayer, ritual, music, beauty, and community. Experts agree those are good things for growing kids, healthy like tall glasses of milk and long nights of sleep. But I don’t need an expert to tell me what I see on Sunday mornings. You leafing carefully through the hymnal pages, pointing when you find … [Read more...] about why you have to go to church