Update: Still bumming at my cousin's.
We'll come back to that.
My church, Newspring, has several campuses across South Carolina. The Sunday before last they reached an all time high with a record attendance of 35,000. Yes, they are a mega church. I've been on both sides of the fence, criticizing and now justifying. I've noticed that the people that criticize the church the most, as I did too, are the ones that have never actually been to it. And even just going once can still cause hesitation. But now that I'm an owner (the equivalent of being a member) there, I cannot imagine staying away. It really is contagious and it's not about our awesome preacher or the music (both of which bring tons of people in the door). For me, I've never felt God's spirit in any church like I do in that one. It's emotional, it puts you in your place, it gets you involved when you don't even like people, and it keeps you on track as far as balancing your life, listening to what God's saying and just doing it. I crave all those things every Sunday. And this week I'll be starting a Next Step group that meets in Anderson which I'm so excited about. I don't know anyone there but I'm excited just the same. See what I mean about meeting people when you never thought you'd do something like that?
On Sunday, Pastor P talked about how sharing your faith and living according to how Jesus really wants you to live, which does not mean picketing at gay parades and telling people they're going to hell or condemning people who don't have a relationship with Jesus, is hard and it's uncomfortable. God knows I have no idea how to talk to anyone about it that doesn't believe the same thing I do. But I like to think that I'm open minded enough to listen and not to brow beat them for disagreeing with me. I'm always curious what leads people to believe the things they do.
Another thing Perry said that really struck a cord was, "Thank you Jesus for loving me enough to not give me what I want." (To the tune of Garth's "Unanswered Prayers"...kidding) I've been thinking about this since I left service Sunday morning. I took it really personally. I wanted to be in Clemson weeks ago. Working and settling in and getting comfortable. But comfort is not really what God specializes in. In fact, comfort is a worldly problem. And we all know the world makes us hard. I admit that I often think there's a reason for everything and could probably analyze it until veins are popping out of my forehead. In this situation, what I wanted and what God wanted did not match up. Hearing that comment made me start thinking about why I was sent here instead. I'm not going to go in to the reasons, but I do believe there is a pretty good one that involves letting go of something and a quiet isolation that allows me to work on doing that.
Im going to try to make it a point to post every week about the small group and what's going on with that. Can't wait to see what it brings.
After disaster week, I've really just been enjoying my time with my cousins and her kid. While their every day life is just the norm routine for them, I find it fun. May is a quirky little girl so she's pretty entertaining.
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