Well, it's been a while since a sermon at church has really struck my head/heart hard enough to demand blog time. This Sunday's sermon by Torrey (new discipleship pastor at my church) really did. Not just because of the topic but because it so perfectly meshed with the other big thing in my heart and made me really see something I've long wished for in a different light.
While I've been at Faith Christian Community for three years, almost four now I still don't feel the same kind of connections I did at my old church. When I first started at my old church its member directory covered just the front of a single piece of paper, when I left it it had abut 200 people. FCC has (I think) several thousand. There is so much I love about FCC that I won't even try to list the reasons. One thing I dislike, and continue to feel ill at ease about it my own sense of disconnection.
Part of that comes from lack of ministry involvement ... a first for me...part is just the sheer size. It's simply not possible to know everyone. Praying through the directory each day while on my treadmill though always brings a sense of sadness that I pray for names with no faces attached, no way to respond when something about the prayer for them leaves my heart aching. Although I could creep people out with mysterious "Praying for you today" notes.
So what was meshing in my head/heart while I sat there? Many of Torrey's questions and many of the things he read from the bible. Biblical sound bytes if you will.
What is the key to community?
How do we overcome ourselves?
Well that is an especially hard one for me as in general I'd rather stab myself to death with the first available object than have to actually speak to someone I don't know. God and I have been working on that one. For seven months now I've made it a point to speak to at least one stranger every day...it's getting easier...still have to force the choice on myself though. Sometimes overcoming ourselves is a long process, one that doesn't necessarily build community. This week I took a big step and accepted a lunch invite from some ladies at church. No idea why they asked me or what we will have to talk about but it's a step towards community and I am happy for that.
Which brings us to "What is the key to community?" and how do we get there? This is what really struck me. If I'd taken better notes, or had my bible handy to search I could be more detailed here. One of the things that was a recurring theme was that we are unified by suffering, that community builds through suffering and sacrifice. Yes it can build through other things, that just builds it faster.
I know this because I see it happen every five months with a new Team in Training group. The Kick-Off Party and first practice each season are awkward and mostly silent. Doesn't take many miles, blisters, injuries, or the need to talk about chafing to break down those walls and begin to create a family. On event weekends that small family explodes into thousands when all the chapters gather for the final big run. Every purple shirt you see is someone you instantly, deeply, unabashedly love because you know exactly why they are there and what it took fo them to be...because you've done it yourself. (Wouldn't it be nice if the same were true at church?)
This is a note left in my "guestbook" at the finish line June 23rd by a teammate from San Francisco who came to Alaska to run the 1/2 marathon:
I must admit, I wasn't sure why I ran in the first place. Or, rather, why I should run. I am unselfish and giving of myself, but my life had never been touched by anything as serious as blood cancers.
Until I opened my eyes.
I watched my best friend suffer while her father fell victim to lymphoma. Friends children succumbed to leukemia under my nose. And I never knew. Until I took this journey.
Then I realized what an idiot I'd been. And blind, too.
But I still didn't feel myself connect to the cause until today.
Mile 6 sucked. At mile 9, I wanted to cry. At mile 11, I didn't know how I'd make it the last two. But I kept telling myself, "Nothing compares to the pain the people you're running for felt. NOTHING."
And I kept going. Because if I can run 13.1 miles in a little bit of pain to keep you from worse, I will. Over and Over again.
Those words blew me away, the perfect description of what it means to become Team in Training. Wouldn't it be an amazing thing if that was how we all reached out as Christians? If a little bit of pain for me will keep you from worse I will gladly take it, over and over, and over again. Christ did exactly that for all of us, and not in just little ways. He did it in ways most of us can no more imagine the pain of than we can imagine the pain a person running a marathon for us would feel. He gave up EVERYTHING to "keep you from worse."
I think that's why at the beginning of every season what I want more than anything is to grab the videos they show at recruitment meetings and play them at church services. Not just because I'd love to be surrounded by my churchmates on the course, or have them cheering/praying from the sidelines, but because I so crave that same sense of community, that sense of doing whatever it took for someone else to infuse my whole church body. I want them all to know both how good it feels to suffer for someone, and how humblingly joyful it is for others to do that for them.
Make room in your life for community...
Be intentionally self- sacrificing ...
Change your attitude & actions ...
Enter community with tenderness and compassion ...
I know I can do that in bigger ways, more consistently than I have. I bet you could too. In reality none of us are too busy, too tired, too stressed, too anything to make it OK to do less for each other than Christ did for us.
|
|
