Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality. [Romans 12:9-21, NIV]

It may be God's mission, but my agenda, my feelings and my attitude often try to interfere. What this reading reminded me is that I need more practice. Practice in hospitality, prayer, sharing with others, remaining hopeful, and patience. And as my son often reminds me, practice is not usually fun. It can even get boring and downright frustrating. But when everything finally clicks and you're riding that bike or playing the perfect piano piece or acing a test, you realize the practice paid off.  Of course, making it over one hurdle simply leads to the next.  I recognize the hurdles keep getting more challenging, but for some reason I tend to think that adulthood should exempt me from all the practice.

So I think a major of the responsibility of a church is to provide opportunities to practice the skills of hospitality, sharing with others, being joyful in hope, patient in affliction and faithful in prayer in order to participate in God's mission. We certainly have some of those opportunities at Peace, but I'd love to see more, especially opportunities to practice outside our walls. What opportunities to practice do you see at Peace? Where are we lacking opportunities?