This was the first week that the Thursday night group was actually able to gather in about a month. All of the participants are very involved in each others lives, so it was not as if we hadn't been in contact but it was nice to be together with focus and intention.
It has become clear to me that this group began so well and has so strong a foundation that when it gathers the principles that created it rule.
Evelyn has familiarized us with Frost and Hirsch's term, "regospeling" for the taking of the bread and the cup. In this group we begin with regospeling in a way that always makes Jesus and the totality of His incarnation and atonement everyone's focus. And, so it was last night.
Later, we resumed our discussion of Francis Chan's CRAZY LOVE. There is so much transparency and trust among the people in the gathering that that discussion became a time in which confession of sin and the provoking of each other to love and good works blended seamlessly.
What a blessing.
There is a different tone to the Thursday gathering than with the Sunday meeting. Sunday's, as I've said, feels like a Kingdom banquet. Thursday's is harder to describe. It is more concerned with what takes place when the rubber meets the road and we are called to be Jesus in the world.
I benefit from both.
A note on big picture issues:
ReplyDeleteThis group is small. Its meetings are intense. Conversation is intimate and transparent. The meetings focus on provoking the participants to an obedient life in the world beyond the gathering.
I have tried on several occasions to motivate the people in the group to open itself up to new people and to grow "attendance."
I now am beginning to accept the fact that that will not happen and I'm also willing to acknowledge that it probably shouldn't. If this group welcomed new people, it certainly would cease to be what it has become and what it has become is a very good thing.
Interestingly, though, our Sunday gathering is open and willing and able to welcome new participants.
The dynamics of this is beyond my understanding in my prophetic giftedness. I think we need apostolic presence but, for now at least, there are none available to us.