Community Building Night

Posted: July 22, 2010 | Author: geoffng | Filed under: Musings |1 Comment »

I didn’t go to Bible study this week.

*GASP*

Now don’t worry! I still love my church and I still absolutely love reading the Bible (even if I fall asleep in the middle sometimes). I love these things…but I decided not to do them this week in small group. Instead, I decided to spend time with people =)

This week, our group had a community building night (read: HANGOUT). Instead of the usual dinner, song and study, we broke out into smaller groups for dinner and wrapped up the night together at the bowling alley. It was a time meant to get people to really talk to each other without the whole “I need to talk spiritual” atmosphere. In all, it was a good time! People came and went, but I feel God really helped us interact with each other better in a night where we weren’t all sitting in a circle talking about a Bible passage.

For us church lifers, I think we spend so much of our time in the church doing church things that we forget the body of believers is made up of people- people whose lives are more than just reading and talking about the Bible. Most of our lives are, in fact, lived outside of the church, dealing with the ups and downs of marriage, work, kids, etc. If we’re not “in” each others’ lives, encouraging, listening and speaking into other peoples’ stories, then we miss out on one of the biggest purposes that Jesus has for the church-

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” – John 13:34-35

Let us love by engaging, knowing and caring for each other in more than just the “churchy” things, but in every important way. Because when we love each other, when we build meaningful relationships within our family in Christ, the world sees that we follow not just the God of truth or the God of laws, but also, the God of love, forgiveness and sacrifice- the One who sent Jesus to die for us. We picture the Gospel to a dark world.

And they’ll know we are Christians by our love , by our love.