Why Saying “I’m Grateful for the Church” Wasn’t Enough for Me

What Are We Building Our Faith In?

For so many years, when someone asked me what I was grateful for, I would answer quickly. Almost without thinking. “I’m so grateful for the church.”

And I meant it. Really, I did. The church has been a place of belonging for me, a place of gathering, of ordinances, of learning. But one day a friend looked at me with a little pause and said, “But isn’t it God’s work? Doesn’t God do that?”

That question stayed with me. Maybe you’ve had a moment like that, where someone says something almost casually, and it plants itself deep in your heart. I kept turning it over in my mind.

What was I really building my faith in?

It’s easier, I think, to place our trust in structures we can see. A chapel. A program. A calling. A leader. Those are tangible, and they feel steady. But then I think of Nephi, who was willing to leave behind everything he knew because his faith wasn’t in a building or a system, but in God Himself.

Sometimes I wonder if I get those mixed up.

It feels safer to say, “I trust the church,” because that doesn’t ask quite as much of me. But if I say, “I trust God,” then I am saying I trust Him with my grief, my unanswered questions, my doubts, my waiting. That feels more vulnerable.

The church is a gift. It holds the ordinances that bind us to heaven. It provides a place to worship, to covenant, to learn together. But at the heart of it, the power has always been in Him. It is His Spirit that teaches. His Atonement that heals. His love that gathers.

And so I’ve been trying to shift my words, even in my prayers. Instead of, “I’m so grateful for the church,” I’ve started to say, “I’m so grateful for God’s work. For His hand in my life. For His Son.”

It changes something in me. It reminds me who I really belong to.

Maybe the real question is not Do I have faith? but Where is my faith anchored?

And on the days when it feels like the structure is shaking, that anchor makes all the difference.