Small Group and other Thoughts

Here’s another early morning post (see below). My dog sits at the window watching me on the computer waiting for me to take him for a walk. I will not today. We are taking some of our small group and friends out on an 11 K hike to where I went with the Youth Vision guys the other week.

• I FINISHED MY DISCIPLESHIP ASSIGNMENT! Handed it in one day late but I was happy. I read heaps for this one. I have 11 books piled up next to me here. I read about 4 of them cover to cover, way over my recomended reading limit, but it was fun.
• Last Friday I had lunch with a friend who has a bit of influence in our church. I wanted to run past the idea of begining to think about what a strategic mission to my area would look like. Would we form a team, a missional order, a church, just how would we do it? Would the church release us to do this kind of thing with blessing support and accountability and relationship? The bottom line is this. Permission was granted to begin some discussions as to what ‘intentional mission’ would look like. How it could come about, in what ways would it be connected to Whitford Church, when would it come about and so on. This seems like a small thing in some ways – “we will talk” – but I feel a giant leap forward has been taken. I appreciated the openess of the meeting, there was honesty and relationship there. Yes, my friend is on a somewhat differing eccleisiastical pathway to myself in some ways, but in others we are both about the Church and letting Christ build it. Lets pray and see what happens hey?
• Friday night the Bartletts, us, the Cox’s, the Illingworths and the Eversdens gathered for life group. We missed the 40 Days of Community DVD (I forgot all about it until the end of the night!) But that is not to say we did not have good community and very good discussion. I know I connected with one individual there in a great conversation about personal salvation, knowing the way to God, experiencing Him, evidence, feelings – all of the things an honest person who is genuinly seeking asks about. I really admire this guy and love spending time chatting with him about life and faith.
• Last night we went to our friends house for dinner. The connection is the wife is Christine’s old best mate from school days. The hubby was brought up Greek Orthodox, his wife went to church and youth with Christine a few times growing up. Without wanting to go into great detail online (but really really wanting to, as the story is so good, and funny – just go see My Big Fat Greek Wedding and you will get the exact picture, its the very same story with male female roles reversed) I will simply say that the conversation we had last night was so centred on issues of faith, church, religion, Christ, tradition, rituals and so on that I didn’t want to leave…I never want to leave a night out, I should say Christine didn’t want to leave, she is usually the one that crashes first, I am the eternal late night talk fest dude. I could tell Christine just wanted to keep this conversation deepening, and asking them more questions about why, what when and where. Bottom line is that they want their kids baptised into the Greek Orthodox Church and all that that entails for them (lots!). They are asking such wonderful questions, my prayer is not that they would not choose the Greek Orthodoc faith, but rather, what ever they do they discover Christ in the choice, in the church, in the religion and ritual.