Hi, Bill…
I'm not UCC; but I am a USAF vet, about your age, and have been around the "church scene" a bit. I have found that Independent Baptists have the best handle on salvation through Jesus Christ — and the least politics and legalisms. In my looking into Presby, Methodist, Congregationalist, Christian, and Catholic churches, I found that salvation was more a matter of being a member of the right church. That is probably your experience with the Catholic church as well, isn't it?
But God calls us to salvation through faith in Christ — which sounds simple (Acts 2:38), but it means that we must repent from our sin nature (sin guilt + desire to sin) and, in the name of Jesus Christ, turn to God and receive His nature (the Holy Ghost + the mind of Christ Holy Spirit). We specifically do that in prayer to God believing that, if God raised Jesus from the dead, He will also resurrect our dead souls to new life in Christ when we turn from, repent, from our old life.
It's quite similar to what Jesus went through on the cross, Bill. When He took our sins upon Himself, he was forsaken of God — and so are we as sinners. Jesus last words on the cross were a prayer to His Father, "Into Thy hands, Father, I commend My spirit." (Lk 43:26) Then He "gave up the ghost" — His mortal life. When we know we are forsaken, we must commend our spirit to God and give up our mortal life — whereupon we receive God's Spirit (mind) and God's Ghost (or image)!!
If you have done this, it almost doesn't matter which church you go to. Church is for growing in the Lord. Some will be better than others, for sure. But you will be learning from the Bible and committing yourself to God's service wherever you are "planted."
skypair
