Hanging out with friends and neighbors tonight
A few months ago, some friends of ours started meeting together every other Saturday night. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to hang out with them. But, tonight, we will!
Last year about this time, we were meeting with these friends every Saturday night, and even hosted in our house a few times. We see some of these friends daily, and some of them we see weekly. But, we haven’t been able to hang out with this week’s hosts in a long time. Plus, they’re our neighbors. So, we’re looking forward to spending time with them.
What will we do? Well, I know that we’ll eat together. We’ll probably also pray together and talk about Scripture together. What do they call this meeting? I don’t know. Does it matter?
Showing more honor
In describing “unhypocrital love” (or sincere love) (Romans 12:9), Paul says, “Outdo one another in showing honor.” (Romans 12:10)
The command is actually a participial phrase that describes the love mentioned in the previous verse: “Love is unhypocritical (sincere)… esteeming one another more highly with honor.”
How do we show more honor to one another?
Camping Adventure
Last weekend, we camped with the church. We’ve done this several times before, and we’ve always had a great time with our friends… and usually met new friends as well.
This time, camping was an adventure.
We only camped Saturday night. We usually camp Friday and Saturday nights. But, the camp was full for Friday night. It actually worked out very well, so that wasn’t the adventure.
Also, more people than normal camped. Generally, a few families pitch their tents, and others join us during the day. This time, many more families than normal camped… and it was great! So, that wasn’t the adventure either.
It was hot. HOT! The temperature reached above 90 degrees Saturday afternoon. It was almost too hot for a camp fire Saturday night. But, we did have a camp fire… and s’mores… so that was not the adventure either.
It rained. It started raining just before 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning. But, it had rained on us before while camping, so that was not the adventure either.
Then…. around 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning… a thunderstorm passed over our campsite. Thunder… lightning… buckets and buckets of water… and we found out that our tent leaked. Well, leak is a nice way of saying that within a few minutes there was a river of water running beside me inside the tent.
Unfortunately, because of the water in our tent, we had to leave the campsite around 2:00 (along with the five kids we were responsible for). But, we returned the next morning. And we continued having a great time with our friends… and with Art from “Church Task Force” who joined us Sunday morning.
It turned out that some people stayed dry, and some people got wet. Several small children (two under one year old) camped overnight, and I think they did the best of all of us.
So… camping was an adventure… but I’m looking forward to the next adventure… perhaps sometime this fall.
Traveling companions
All believers are travelers… walking the way of Jesus through a land that is not our home. The church is composed of those traveling companions who are walking with Jesus together with you.
Jesus promised that we would not walk alone. He is with us… indwelling us with his Spirit. He is also with us through the interactions and relationships with our traveling companions.
We never walk alone, even when we are alone. On the other hand, we are not created to walk by ourselves. “Just me and Jesus” may be the American way, but it is not the way of Christ.
We need our traveling companions, and they need us.
Traditional Church Community
Is it possible to build community if you are part of a traditional church? Well, Arthur at “the voice of one crying out in suburbia” says, “Yes,” in his post “Community in the traditional church.” Actually, Arthur says, “Yes, if…” If what? Well, if the people are willing to make a conscious, intentional effort at building community. This is how Arthur starts:
While recognizing that the traditional model of the gathering of the church is far and away the most common, I also recognize that this very common cultural icon makes it difficult to enjoy real, intimate, dare I say Biblical community. I count where we gather as a family in this camp even though we don’t have some of the traditional barriers to community. Creating community is more than eliminating some of the trappings of traditional Christianity but instead involves a conscious and intentional decision to cultivate the reality of what God has created among us.
By the way, community takes conscious, intentional effort outside of the traditional church as well.
Wednesday Night Worship Service: Yeah, Of Course There’s Food Involved
God has placed me among some awesome people – brothers and sisters in Christ. For example, whenever someone is hurting or in need or had a baby or had been in the hospital or had been sick, someone begins to organize meals. The elders don’t tell them to do it. There is no benevolence committee or ministry director to control it. Instead, whenever someone is in need, someone else sends out an email and begins organizing meals.
Tonight, Margaret (my wife) had volunteered to prepare a meal for some friends of ours who recently had a baby. The husband and wife are both vegetarians, so she made a vegetarian pizza, something she normally doesn’t do. I got home just in time to help put the finishing touches on the pizza and salad. Then we delivered the meal to our friends.
Others have taken meals to our friends, and still others will take meals later. Why? Because we love them, and we want to help them while they adjusting to have a new baby. I can’t think of a better way to serve (worship) on a Wednesday evening!
Steve Timmis interview about gospel word and gospel community
A friend on facebook sent me a link to this interview with Steve Timmis, one of the authors of Total Church, a book that I’ve recommended before. Here is part of the interview:
“We take seriously the Gospel word — we are confessional evangelicals. We have a number of values and a statement of faith that reflects that,†said Timmis, who also serves as Western Europe Director for the Acts 29 church planting network. “We believe the Gospel word is a word to be spoken: we try and argue that very clearly in church (life). So, you can’t talk about living a life without speaking the Word. If you do, then whatever you are doing, you are not evangelizing; you are selling the Gospel short. So, the Gospel word is very important to us and it is a word that focuses upon what God has done in Christ in redeeming a people for Himself who will enjoy Him for eternity.
“We also take seriously Gospel community in a way that, traditionally, confessional evangelicals haven’t. Gospel community is a group of people who are being rescued by King Jesus and who live as His subjects together to demonstrate to the world what a great King He is. So, Gospel community is a demonstrating community: it demonstrates the nature of the Kingdom of God, the nature of Jesus’s rule.â€
This parallel emphasis on the gospel proclaimed and the gospel lived out in community is one of the reasons that I appreciated Total Church and that I recommend it often.
By the way, later in the interview Timmis discusses their use of the term “church,” which he defines as “gospel community.” They use the term “church” to describe both a larger gathering and smaller gatherings, which others would call “small groups” or “Bible studies” or “Sunday School classes” but not “church.”
Tired of the “church experience”
I just read this in an old comment on one of my posts:
I think the best thing that could happen in the Church is if the “leaders†had to sit for a good extended period of time among all the others in the pews. They would quickly see why so many Christians are tired of their Church experience.
What do you think?
Church in the Wildwood
Okay… not really the wildwood… but in a few weeks, our church will be gathering together at a local campground. We’ll be camping together beginning Saturday, May 15 through Sunday, May 16.
I always love camping with the church. We get to spend so much time with one another, and I always get to know one or two people better than I had before.
I think one of my favorite times camping is the evening camp fire. Just about the time it gets dark, we circle our chairs around the fire and eat S’mores, and sing, and eat S’mores, and share stories, and eat S’mores, and tell jokes, and eat S’mores, and praise God, and eat S’mores. Occasionally, we’ll also eat S’mores.
If you want to camp with us – or even just join us for part of Saturday evening (the camp fire) or Sunday morning – let me know and I’ll give you more details.
And, if you haven’t thought about it before, why not trying camping with your church – or even just a few families if its not something that can be done in your church situation.
Dallas Willard on Assessing Spiritual Growth
There is a very interesting interview with Dallas Willard at Out of Ur called “Dallas Willard on How We Assess Spiritual Growth.” The interview begins like this:
How can churches know if they are being effective at making disciples?
Many churches are measuring the wrong things. We measure things like attendance and giving, but we should be looking at more fundamental things like anger, contempt, honesty, and the degree to which people are under the thumb of their lusts. Those things can be counted, but not as easily as offerings.
How are those things assessed? Willard says that certain tools can be helpful, but only in the context of “a deep fellowship of trust.” Very interesting interview… you should read it.
Have you ever been part of a “deep fellowship of trust”? How did you assess one another’s spiritual growth?