Monday, February 19, 2007

Connections

I was not involved with the church from 1997 to July 2006. Now I have been involved with a few different churches. God initiated my involvement via emotional pain. (Thank you.)
Last Friday, 2-2-07, God showed me ways to bring some people together in a very small way. It involved my building church small group (the Journey) that was doing an outreach to the homeless in Ft. Worth. I invited people from my organic simple church (the Way); two showed up (Nate and Andrea). Bill, one of the elders of the homeless church in Dallas came with me. He served people food and water. Nate initiated a conversation about Jesus with someone who was mad at God for what he has been through. Andrea jumped in and gave her testimony about the hard things she has gone through. Later Nate connected with that guy on the movie Tombstone. Julia and I talked to some christian guys that needed encouragement. There is already a church among the Ft. Worth homeless; I would like to see them function better and more deliberately together. That is how I feel about the church everywhere and in every circumstance (like at where I work). It might not sound like much but to me it was great to see the church from different parts funtioning together.

Bill stayed at my place. Spending some time together showed me things we have in common... in Christ. He wanted me to meet people from his home church. He is an white man that belongs to an all black building church. I brought him to the "lay preacher" Carlos' house. I saw true unity in the Spirit. The three of us were totally different; we had nothing in common. We were different culturally, financially, racially. Carlos had a wife and a kid living with him. Bill and I don't have that. Carlos and I have a house, Bill doesn't. The three of us had radically differnt personallities. All this to say, WE ARE ONE in the spirit. We connected in Jesus, if nothing else, and it was so much more than enough. Being around Carlos for that hour brought out from me a deeper love of God and more sincere prayer, reaching out to Jesus in prayer with my spiritual brothers Bill and Carlos; I saw part of myself that I have never seen, not even while alone.

I connect with my older blood brother from the same mother in more ways than I connect with anyone. I think I have always loved him more than anyone. But concerning Christ, we don't connect; which is truly the only point of connection that matters. His wife and I don't connect on anything but Christ; and that is everything, so I have a real connection with her.

At work I am being a tiny bit more open but I am only making baby steps in sharing. There are a few confessing christians there but I have only just begun to connect with one christian there. It is very encouraging for me. At my organic simple churches we are really starting to connect in a deeper way, by actually seeing eachother on days other than the official meeting. We are sharing what God puts on our hearts and seeking to help eachother do them. We MUST praise Jesus alone for this.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good stuff.
Keep reminding us how we're connected.

Anonymous said...

You are blowing me away! I am amazed at your journey and so pumped to walk with you