Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.- -Hebrews 10:22

We have often heard and spoken the words, “Come to church”

When we say them, our hearts are right. Deep inside we know that the church is not a building made with hands, but a gathered people. We are inviting our friends to gather with us at the place where the church convenes. We are inviting them to be the church with us. We are inviting them to draw near to God.

It is about the invitation.

“O, come to the church in the wildwood,” is a first step toward giving the greater invitation to come to Jesus and thus, to “draw near.”

Our verse invites us to draw near with a true heart. No one knows the heart but the God who can change the heart.

We are invited to come with an assurance of faith, believing that God is as real as the structure in which He is worshipped.

The scripture acknowledges that our consciences have been as corrupted as dark soot on a white building. Yet, they can be sprinkled clean. Our bodies have been soiled inside and out, but they can be washed with the pure water of God’s truth and forgiveness.

In the same way that we invite everyone we know to “come to church,” so God invites all to come to Him through His Son.

At the top of many church buildings is a steeple or a spire. The word sounds like “spirit” and reminds us of the function of the church to inspire. The root of the word, “spire” is from the Anglo Saxon word for “spear.” The spear is thrown in the direction of its desired target even as the spire on a church points to God.

So, every church and every church building exists to inspire people to invite the Spirit to dwell within them and to point the way to God. Let us draw near.

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It was 1857, Dr. William A. Pitts, not yet, a physician, was riding a stagecoach to visit his fiancé in Iowa. Along the way, the driver stopped in a wooded area for a respite. The wooded valley so inspired him, that in his mind, he saw a little church building there. Returning home to Wisconsin, he wrote the words to the song, “The Church in the Wildwood.”

After he had done so, he reflected that, “only then, was I at peace with myself.”

In 1862, now married, he and his wife revisited that spot to see that a church was being built in the place where he had envisioned one. It was being pained brown.

There is still a church there, active to this day:

1 There’s a church in the valley by the wildwood,
No lovelier spot in the dale;
No place is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale.

Refrain:
Come to the church in the wildwood,
Oh, come to the church in the vale;
No spot is so dear to my childhood
As the little brown church in the vale.

2 Oh, come to the church in the wildwood,
To the trees where the wild flowers bloom;
Where the parting hymn will be chanted,
We will weep by the side of the tomb. [Refrain]

3 How sweet on a clear Sunday morning,
To list to the clear ringing bell;
Its tones so sweetly are calling,
Oh, come to the church in the vale. [Refrain]

4 From the church in the valley by the wildwood,
When day fades away into night,
I would fain from this spot of my childhood
Wing my way to the mansions of light. [Refrain]

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