the ten after

Every Sunday morning at Journey Campus, we have a video called “The Ten Before” that greets the congregation before the service starts and lets everyone know what’s going on this week. A couple months ago, Dan came up with the idea of blogging a little on Mondays and calling it “The Ten After”… to reflect on how God spoke and moved in the previous day’s service. Well he’s a little busy, leading a new church campus and all. So he’s letting me use the cool title and entrusting me to offer a teensy commentary of my own. Consider this the other half’s thoughts on the best day of the week…

Yesterday my husband delivered an amazing message on Acts 2:42-47, and what the NIV calls fellowship… “the mutual participation in the Holy Spirit.” I think the cool thing to call it in our day is authentic community. Wrapping up this teaching series Join the Movement, he reiterated that God never intended the church to be an institution, but a movement. And one intrinsic trait of this movement that has made it survive and thrive so that its still going 2000 years later, is its core distinction of fellowship… community… relationships. Circles, not rows.

I think my favorite statement of the message yesterday was powerfully simple, “God isn’t after getting us ‘churched.’” You know how people jump up and down at a football game and yell and scream when a touchdown’s made? Yep, I wanted to jump up and down at that one, right from my spot on the front row, left side. There’s a part of me that’s still a high school cheerleader deep inside, and I felt like grabbing some pom-poms and jumping into some killer toe-touches. But I think that might’ve been a distraction.

It’s true, though. God isn’t after getting us “churched.” And for SO long I thought my problem was that I wasn’t a “church” person. Growing up in the South, not having a “church home” was like wearing a scarlet letter on your chest. (I guess it would’ve been “U” for “unchurched”… haha). When I finally came to realize that what God was really after was a relationship with me, it changed my life.

And then, like Dan talked about, to experience the level of relationships – the incredible friendships – we’ve been so blessed to experience throughout our sixteen years of marriage, it grounds me to always remember: This is church. These people, these friendships, these conversations, this laughter, these tears, this celebration, these prayers, this circle… This is church. Not the busyness, not the programs, not the building, not the set-list, not the to-do list.

Last night we hosted GroupLink, our annual big event where people get into Journey Groups. Since Dan and I are already in a group and love it, I was free to serve last night, helping people get connected (and plum know where to go)! It was phenomenal, from the amazing candy bar set up by our event team to the warm hospitality of our group leaders. In the course of an hour, over 200 people mixed and mingled and connected… and by the end, the Lord had taken a mob and formed it into circles. Beautiful circles. It was a sight to see.

The beginning was such mass chaos (reminded me of opening the doors to a junior high dance)… I was so busy introducing and helping people who looked lost (which was pretty much everyone)… I snagged a Twix and a Snickers from the candy bar and hid them in a corner for the ride home! But as the night was coming to a close, and everyone had found a seat, groups started their own conversations around their tables. I grabbed some coffee and took a second to stand in the back and breathe. (I’m an introvert. I love people, but they totally exhaust me.)

Standing there sipping my coffee, I looked out at those 200+ people and thought about how huge a deal this is. Every one of these people. In the Word. Growing in their relationship with Christ, and with His church. Totally blew me away.

And then I spotted mine and Dan’s journey group table… and holy kamoley! Michael   and Krystal, our beloved friends and group leaders, were sitting around a table EXPLODING with new couples! My first thought? They might need to add onto their living room. My second? A year from now, those are the people we’ll call to borrow a weed-eater if ours goes out, or to drive our girls to ballet if we both have the flu. (Heaven forbid either of those things happen!) That circle, those couples, will be our Hebrews 10:25 friends, “pouring courage into” us when we need it most.

We didn’t come up with the idea that circles are better than rows, but – newsflash – Andy Stanley didn’t either. Authentic community is God’s idea. It’s worth the risk. Even for an introvert like me. If you didn’t get a chance to hear my husband’s message live at Journey Campus yesterday, you can listen for free here: www.journeycampus.com.  And if you’re ready to move out of a row and into a circle, but didn’t make it to GroupLink last night, it’s not too late. Email journeycampus@cbcj.net and we’ll get you connected. Again, it’s worth the risk.