I've been a part of the church for a very long time.

My dad is a pastor, and so I'm 41 years old, and so for my whole life I've been part

of the church, which might seem like, oh, okay, well, she's sort of a natural at this church

business, but every Sunday is a moment where you have to go,

okay, Lord, these people are my people. This worship is the worship that you have given to me.

This is where you promised blessing. And so this is where I'm going to be.

Welcome to the Crossway podcast, a show where we sit down with authors each week for thoughtful interviews about the Bible, theology, church history, and the Christian life.

I'm Matt Tully, and today I'm talking with Megan Hill.

Megan serves as an editor for the gospel coalition.

She's also a pastor's wife and an author, and her latest book is A Place to Belong, Learning

to Love the Local Church with Crossway.

Today, Megan and I discuss the importance of the local church for our lives as God's

people.

She reflects on the challenging season we've all been in due to COVID-19, explains why the local church is so essential for our

spiritual growth as Christians, and offers three practical suggestions for cultivating deeper

relationships with other church members. Let's get started. Megan, thank you so much for joining me on the Crossway podcast today.

Thanks for having me, Matt.

I think it's fair to say that oftentimes our experience of church, of the local church, can feel pretty unremarkable.

And yet you kind of listed out some of the amazing things about the church, things that we see in Scripture, the beauty of the church and the eternal significance of the church.

So how do you, in your own mind, reconcile those two seemingly contradictory ideas, that on the one hand, our experience can often be unremarkable, and yet we read in scripture that the church is truly remarkable in so many ways.

Yeah, I think that that's very consistent with most of the Bible's teaching, right?

I mean, that the kingdom is a little mustard seed, and it grows into this giant tree.

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