Three weeks ago I journaled the first gathering of our Thursday group in eight weeks. That gathering was out of the ordinary for several reasons, including the fact that it was the first and only time we met in our home.
Last night we met for the first time in ELEVEN weeks in the usual format and we were right on track with our core purpose to, of course, provoke each other to love and good works.
The man in the host family asked, even before the gathering began, if he could lead the taking of the Lord's Supper. And, what he offered us was incredibly brief, Jesus-focused and powerful.
Recently, I have asserted that a crucial challenge to American Evangelicalism in the wake of the Supreme Court same sex marriage decision is that today's Evangelicals have perverted the gospel by editing out of the teachings of Jesus the demand that anyone who would follow Him must deny self. They don't preach that message to their own churchy people. How, then, can they preach it to LGBTQers?
Fred, our host, has not read this blog for years and he has no idea that I've blogged what I have blogged. Yet, in leading us in the taking of the Lord's Supper, he called us to reflect on Jesus teaching that following Him begins with the denial of self.
That theme set the tone for the meeting.
We resumed study of Francis Chan's CRAZY LOVE, which contains the self-denial theme.
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We had an eleven week gap between meetings but, because our fellowship transcends the gathering, we picked up without skipping a beat.
What a blessing.
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