small steps

small steps

Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Filled with Awe


"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." Acts 2: 42-47

I have read this beautiful passage in Acts 2 dozens of times over the years. The book of Acts has become a source of hope and renewal for me. I love to be reminded of the fire and passion of the early church. I love this example of these first Christ followers. I've brought it in front of students over and over again. I've asked the question--what does this look like for us in the church, today? My heart has wrestled with this passage and found hope in it's example of living for Jesus. 

A couple months ago, I was sitting in our staff meeting when our senior pastor shared his heart. He shared how God had nudged him as our spiritual leader to help create a weekend for our church family with an emphasis on spiritual renewal and unity. His vision was different from anything we had thought of tackling as a church family or a church staff--atleast in the four years I've been blessed to serve at Castleton UMC. One of the things, I so appreciate about our senior pastor is that Pastor Frank knows he needs help with the details. He had been prayerful over the direction we needed to go but knew it would take a team to make a purposeful spiritual renewal weekend a reality. I watched in the weeks to come as he reached out to church members, church leadership & our staff to make all the logistical details of this past weekend possible. Again and again he reminded us to cover it all with prayer. 

This past Sunday, I sat in a different spot of the sanctuary then normal for our combined worship service. I sat in the back on a folding chair so that the pews could be packed in. I watched as all ages filed into worship. I began to reflect of the dozens of ways the people who were entering into worship had reached out to serve our neighborhood and had come together in fellowship over the past 48 hours. And then as the music for worship began, I could not hold back my tears, immediately God brought to my heart this passage from Acts.

I realized I had found the answer to my question that my heart has wrestled with for so many years--this is how the church today lives out this walk with Jesus as a family of believers. Over this past weekend, it didn't matter our preference of worship style, it didn't matter how long you had been a church member or not. Teenagers were serving in the midst of an older generation...children were working alongside their parents and their church family.  There was love and selflessness poured into every meal served to every worker, volunteer & community member. We ate together. We served together. We laughed together. We saw the love of Jesus within one another. We went beyond the walls of our church to share that love with others. On Sunday, we witnessed some profess a desire to say yes to a relationship with Christ for the very first time. 

We are far from the perfect church. This past weekend wasn't about being a perfect community of believers. It was however, a powerful reminder of what it means to allow our Perfect Savior to guide us...to work together in His name. I never could have imagined this kind of renewal but I'm thankful for the reminder of Acts 2 now more than ever and I am filled with awe.






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