Community

This past weekend, I went camping with six other guys and six boys. Thirteen of us all together, all the adult men disciples. We shot guns and rifles on a makeshift rifle range, had campfires, a couple of us went white water rafting et al.

In many ways, it was more of a church than what happens on a Sunday.

If church is a community that is centered on Christ, then what was experienced was more of a church than what is typically labeled as such. We challenged each other, we had some deep theological discussion (including a rousing one on if it is 1% law and 99% grace, it's 100% legalism), we encouraged each other, we spurred one another on to doing good afterward, we sympathized and comforted one in our crowd who's facing having to get a legal separation early this week, etc. And I believe God was more glorified in it than if we had stared at the back of each others' heads singing with one of us giving a talk somewhere along the way.

That, my friends, is what I'm learning a church to really be, as intended. We glorified God in our interaction, we had fellowship, we had times of discipling one another, we ministered one another, and we were sounding boards for one another in how we will be about the God given missions of our lives. Moreso, I believe, than the churches of four walls and a pulpit.