Not getting a feeling of religious/spiritual fulfilment

[Lulabell]

Hi,

Sorry that this is a very long post. I'm hoping someone may have experienced something like this and have some advice.

After Easter I noticed that I was going to mass (RC) less and less often. I've never particularly enjoyed mass at our local church, but now I know find the thought of it unbearable as I just feel so miserable and unfulfilled by it; I no longer have any motivation to go. I've only been to church a couple of times since our wedding in August, and one of those was the obligatory Christmas visit.

This is not how I wanted to live my life. My husband and I had a religious wedding because we both believe and we wanted our faith to be an important part of our relationship. Instead, neither one of us has been to church for months, and I feel like a hypocrite and extremely guilty.

My dh is french, and he doesn't like the english RC services, so he hasn't exactly encouraged me to find the motivation to go to our church as he doesn't want to go. Before we were together he used to go to C of E or other Protestant churches, basically wherever he felt welcome and felt like he could worship successfully.

I used to be very anti this as, having chosen (as an adult) an orthodox-based faith myself, I was sure I would find the doctrines incompatible, but now I'm not so sure. I'm beginning to think that maybe they have more in common with the orthodox beliefs than the RC church does. And now I have no idea what to do.

I dont really know where to turn for inspiration.

I know plenty of people have converted from RC or orthodoxy to CofE or Protestantism, and vice versa; does anyone have any idea about doctrinal differences and compatibility? Or indeed where on earth is a good place to start when you feel like this?

I have no idea what to do, I just know I'm unhappy.

Surely the most important thing is worship that is acceptable to God. The best way is to study the Bible, find out what he wants and then find the religion that worships him the correct way.

For example if you were to identify all the fake £20 notes, you are best to study the genuine article rather than all the fakes. That way you will really know the difference.

That's what I think anyway.

Hallelujah - re your post of 17.57

The OP referred to orthodox with a small 'o' and talked about 'orthodoxy'. Naturally, I inferred that she was talking about trinitarian or catholic churches. She didn't talk about Eastern churches until much later on.

I go to a lively Baptist church (as I'm sure you know Baptist churches are also orthodox) it has people of all ages and a massive sunday school. I think it is fine to go orthodox church shopping - we did and then settled at the church we now attend - have now been there for 14 years...

Its not about what type of orthodox church you go to - its all about your and your family's personal relationship with Jesus. If you build a close relationship with God and use the Bible as your anchor you won't go far wrong. As one of the poster's above wrote - Christianity is all about relationships.

It's not about denominations.

Personally as an ecumenical Christian I think you should look around at churches. Before we had our dcs me and my DH attended a church in a very deprived area of the city we lived in, we helped with the Sunday school which was fine for a while. After a year or so we felt we needed to move churches, but it was getting pregnant with our first child that actually made us look around for other churches that would feel right at that stage of life. I am so glad we did - we found a wonderful church with an amazing minister and our dcs can attend a thriving Sunday school. Your needs change and there's nothing wrong with that.

Having said that I try to keep in mind that it's what I can do for God and not what He can do for me.

Stirringbeast comes back to the most important point: what we can and must do for God.
God is worthy of the best of our worship and we must give that in the place where we can best do it.

That will be different for all of us and since God loves us He will be very pleased for us when we give Him our best.

I and my DH are sitting thinking about your predicament. I had a spell of persevering despite not feeling anything at all and getting quite despondent about and also quite anti parts of my RC faith. I read a couple of interesting books by Scott Hahn and honestly, it opened my eyes and heart wrt my faith, it's practice and why... I love Mass and am now able to really connect, most of the time to the message and the worship and although I don't alway get the 'feeling', I still get the spiritual side and grace...
The Lamb's Supper in particular and Hail Holy Queen.

Thank you so much to everyone who has replied to this thread, I really appreciate it.

Today we went to one of the CofE churches near to where we live, and it was a real eye-opening experience. The service was very new to me, completely different in style from a Catholic service, or at least the ones I've been to. It was very dynamic and modern, they powerpoint, video clips and sound clips. The service was very thankful and they focused a lot on Acts, and as many of you said, that we ought to be giving back and working for God.

It wasn't spiritual in a way I'm used to (although due to crazy hormones I managed to find plenty that was uplifting and moving enough to cry at ), but it was certainly worshipful.

The congregation were all extremely friendly and the church is extremely community centred, a seemingly endless number of study and discussion groups, community outreach and charity projects, and a really solid and growing sunday school and youth group. I find this also to be very inspiring, and they encourage everyone to join at least one group and ideally to join one of the charitable projects. (And it turns out their pub quiz team is the one that beat my parents and their friends last month )

My dh really enjoyed it and was enthusiastically comparing it to other protestant churches he's visited, although he did say he'd be happy to visit other churches.

I'm really glad I acted on the advice here, I felt comfortable and able to participate in a way that I haven't for a long time; and I think that as I am not actually RC myself and as dh doesn't like the RC services in England, we will pursue this further. I haven't seen dh so invigorated after mass ever I think.

macmam thank you for those recommendations; I think one day we will move back to France and then dh will want to go back to the RC church, so I'm going to have a look for those books. Thank you

Now isn't that the most marvellous outcome. Thank you Lord and thank you Lula for updating us. This has made my dreary Monday morning.

Thank you too DutchOma, you gave me the nudge I needed to do it.