Friends, Spring is upon us, that’s for sure. Although we didn’t eat outside last night, we did have the windows open which is a first for the season. Josh made his signature spaghetti which, as per usual, was awesome.
Earlier in the week Josh sent an email around suggesting that we use the next couple of weeks to discuss and commit to prayer where we want to go as a group. So we did just that and it was a pretty cool and encouraging conversation. I took the opportunity to look back in the blog where we first posted our vision/mission statement for the group (all the way back in January 2008!):
“In this group we hope to seek to know the Character of God, and know His many attributes. Often times we know what God has told us to do but we don't know the Author of life Himself. Our hope is the more we discover who God is, the more our hearts will be moved by the things that move God's heart. The more our hearts are transformed we will discover the way of life Jesus taught us, and strive to engage and be active in this city, bringing beauty and hope. We are leaning on God and asking Him for an extra dose of creativity, so we can love our neighbors.
“As we go on this journey together, "I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever!" (Eph 3:18)”
I felt encouraged reading back over the blog and being reminded of how far God has brought us, all the people that blessed and were blessed by the group over the years, friends that we’ve seen come and go, the things that we’ve accomplished together. And then I thought about how each and every person has changed so much in the last two years. It is through the power of Christ that we have learned more about the character of God and through that, more about each other. We have been transformed. And I think that God has so much more he wants to do in our lives.
We did discuss some logistical issues, like making sure that we all pitch in some money for dinners, letting Josh know ahead of time whether or not we’re coming (by texting or phone call or email) so that he knows how much food to make. We also talked about continuing to schedule what we will do each week (i.e. bible study, worship, prayer) and generally thought it would good to alternate between a bible study one week and worship and prayer the next. And we want to continue our exploration of Luke and the New Testament.
Then we started thinking “outside the box” about the structure of the group and what we really wanted to DO as a group. Jess made a good point that the group doesn’t necessarily need to look like it does now, meeting every week at the same place, dinner and discussion. We talked about how we could meet different places and on different days. Janelle also made a good point that in certain ways, we have formed into an old school (like New Testament) style home church, which are pretty common all over the world. These are small groups of believers who meet together with a shared love of Christ, to eat together, to worship together, and to immerse themselves in prayer together.
While we agreed that we were not interested in creating a formal “church”, we did discuss ways to make the group more open to new people again. Now that we are not associated with Vineyard, it’s a lot less likely that someone we don’t know will just show up on a given Thursday night. Josh and
At the end of the night, we agreed to continue praying and talk again next week about our vision and plans for Thursday nights. I believe that all of us were encouraged excited about the future and eager to learn more about what God has in store for us as a group. I certainly think that God wants to continue the work He has begun.
So for those of you who weren’t there, what do you think?
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