Nathan and I have been talking a lot about community. While we both have family nearby we have longed and prayed for a group of people that we can share life with on an intimate, christ centered way. And you know our God, we pray, and when it is his will, he answers. When we were asked to attend a small church on the edge of town in place of our much larger church we were not exactly sure how we felt about that. You know how it is, you attend the same church for a long time, each and every Sunday. Enter the same door, talk to the same people, sit in the same pew…
Praise God that his plan is much bigger than ours! That small, intimate church has become such an important part of our lives. It is more than a Sunday morning worship experience, its a collection of real people who love God and it shows. We come early, worship together, stay late and meet up during the week. We know each others names. If you aren’t there on a Sunday morning, someone notices.
So our prayers continued that God would give us a group of people that we could connect with, share with, live with. It happened slowly, but we feel that God carefully drew a group of people together that needed each other.
The twelve disciples were followers of Jesus whom he had chosen to become his core group, the people he talked things over with and depended on. Just as Jesus continued to share the good news with others wherever he went, he needed that smaller community to be himself. We believe that God wants that for us too. That is what we prayed for and what God provided for us in the most beautiful way.
