Havin' Church

Tonight we had our second installment of the Church Incognito. It was so pleasant. We had my sister's family, two other couples, and myself.

The night started with supper. It was pretty good too. I made shepherd's pie, Penny made an awesome salad, and Sara made chocolate chip cookies with a hint of orange. My sister provided the sweet tea!

After we had cleaned up from supper we got some coffee and headed to the living room where we sang a couple songs and then we talked about the passage in 1 Corinthians 14:26-33. I would love to say that I was better prepared, but I hadn't looked at the passage today. Justin really did a great job talking about this passage and had some really great insights to share.

One of the things that Justin talked about was a book that he read in college about spiritual disciplines. (I need to get the title from him, because it sounded like one I would like to read.) But as he was talking about the book it became clear to me that I have been lacking in the area of meditation and listening to God.

Lately I have been so harried by my situation and by all of the things going on around me that it has been hard for me to pray or hear God at all. I have to be able to come back to my base and hear what God is saying to me and bask in the peace of His presence. I have spent far too much time lately quite literally raging in the storm. The Word tells us that rage is a fruit of the flesh. If I am producing fleshly fruit, I must have gotten detached from the correct vine.

From a practical perspective I have to say that the singing section and the Word section were a little bumpier than I would have liked, but still it went OK. A little more preparation and some prayer towards this meeting should make things go a lot better. And as you can see from what I wrote in the paragraph above, there was fruit from this time.

By far my favorite time of the night was when we gathered together to pray. What a sweet time. We went for close to an hour and the presence of God was so tangible. It helped me to realize just how far I had been from His presence lately. God is so good to meet us, broken as we are.

Anyway, it was a great meeting and I will look forward to seeing how things continue to go. What will God do with our little group? I have no idea, but I am certainly looking forward to finding out!