God sends His blessings at the right moment, just when we are not expecting them.
As I sat in the living room of a church where follow believers in Christ sat along side me, God whispered to me, “This is what your community will look like for your team and you on the race.”
I looked around at all the faces wanting to hear from what God had given Chris to say for this morning’s service, all I could see was authentic community. Christ calls us to live in authentic community, as we grow in Him. Most churches meet in building, where people come together and worship our God, but not all live in authentic community.
Just the other day I was listening to a podcast about authentic community. I relearned what it means to show this. As the pastor instructed people to pull the paper out that was on their seats, and circle yes or no for each question that came across the screen. The podcast cut, because they played a song as the words went across the screen. I sat there and wondered what they would be. Maybe it was, “Have you ever been hurt by someone in the church?” raised up in my mind, because the topic at hand. The podcast cut back and he continued to preach about the subject. Near the end, buckets were pasted out with paper in them, and they were instructed to take one. Then the pastor asked the questions that were on the screen, told everyone that they were holding a card of someone in the room, now there were no names on the cards so no on know who they had. As he asked the questions he asked if there was a yes circled to stand up. The object lesson behind this was that everyone has mess and you are not the only person with that same mess, but you are welcome here no matter what.
This house church that I got the privilege of sitting in the service with was showing authentic community in everything that they did. This was a picture as to what community should be like and what my team and I will experience while on The World Race.
It was all I could do to hold back the tears as I got a little taste of that community. After listening to the pastor speech about Christ and what he did in the short amount of day from sun up to sun down, I got the opportunity to share my story in front of a whole room. The amount of gratitude I have to be able to share about The World Race to them, and this being the first group of people to share with cannot be expressed by words. What a great blessing God has giving me today to be able to share and live in community with them at both of their services.
