Two joys in one service

Yesterday we headed out to a local nursing home to hand out bears to the residents there. As awkward and uncomfortable as that can be, it was a real joy to see what it meant to some of them. Too soon it was over & we were all heading over to Gerry's. Not that we didn't want to go to Gerry's because that was joy of a different sort! We were honored to take advantage of her generosity while we shared each others company and some amazing treats!

Corporate Guidance

Yesterday Randy came by for the first time in a long while and spoke with us about Corporate guidance. As we studied Acts 15:1-29 we talked about how the people in the passage listened and allowed God to guide their decision. As we read, we realized that the people making the decisions were very adamantly opposed to one another's viewpoints, but that by listening they came to a conclusion that they all could live with, a compromise that allowed God's work to be done.

Guidance as a discipline seemed to us to begin with a determination that we would choose God's direction over our own desires. That determination needs to be followed up with a willingness to listen & finally, the thoughts and advice of other people need to be thrown into the mix.

We followed up our discussion time with some group prayer and then moved onto the next room to eat and hang out. Overall our time together yesterday was typical of what our time together usually is. There is a unity that can not be described as we learn from one another and share our lives. Its a beautiful thing.

Outward Disciplines

Yesterday at CG we talked about the outward disciplines, focusing mainly on simplicity. And as usually happens with us, everything seemed to come together seamlessly in a God driven way. Even our band was simple that night.

As we began to discuss what it meant to live a simple life, all different kinds of thoughts and ideas poured out. Things like cell phones and the internet were called out for being huge time suckers in our lives, even keeping us from LIVING our life. But as we neared the end, we came to the conclusion that it wasn't necessarily the thing, the the value we gave that thing in our life, and the priority that we gave it over God. Thats a huge and important difference.

We finished out the service with Communion, as we always do on the second Sunday of the month. Its always cool to share that together because we are really sharing and serving one another.

Next week we'll be doing our service project, but we have yet to pin down exactly what that is. Check the website later in the week to find out!

5 days, 15 mins of Meditation

Yesterday at CG we dived into the Spiritual disciplines by spreading out across the room and taking time to meditate. As we were doing this, we went through a process which was intended to help us give up our fears and accept peace from God. We also tried opening our hearts and minds to hear what God would have to say to us. Whether we hear Him as a small voice or just a "knowing", all of us are capable of hearing from Him. It sounds strange, but its totally true.

Before heading into another room to hang out and snack, we wrapped up with a challenge: take 15 mins M-F to read a Psalm & spend time with God, focusing on it. Those of us who wanted to participate told someone else so that we could share our experiences with them. It should be cool to hear what everyone's experiences were like next week!

Spiritual Discipline

In the church world, phrases like "Spiritual Discipline", that mean pretty much nothing to the majority of the population, are pretty common. If you've never heard it before, it kinda sounds like a scary boot camp kind of a deal, but really it just boils down to exercises that we can do to help us grow closer to God. And if we leave out the whip cracking mentality of Legalism, it can actually be a pretty enlightening experience.

Yesterday we talked a little bit about what different spiritual disciplines there are and what ones we could do as individuals & what ones we could do as a community. Theres too many to list (or even remember!) but our focus for next week is going to be on the ones that are individual and internal. Those include fasting, meditating, praying and studying. Each of these are important in their own way and for different reasons. Even the ones that we find personally distasteful (like fasting!) hold value and merit and provide and opportunity for us to learn something we wouldn't otherwise. Its all in the way we look at it, and if we approach it, not from a "I have to do this" standpoint, but from an open heart looking to experience closeness with God, then we have much to gain.

Join us next week to explore what these are all about!

Service of Service J-Life

Yesterday at CG we went over to J-life for our Service of Service and painted their garage. With so many of us there we got it done pretty quickly and surprisingly enough, it was a relatively warm day & great for painting. It was a lot of fun & I'm sure we're all looking forward to our service projects for the future.

The "Call"

Yesterday at CG, we Read Ephesians 4:1-14 and discussed what it meant to have a "call" or a purpose for our life. For some of us it is very clear, for others, its more murky, but there is no mistaking the fact that God has a plan for each of us and that giving Jesus, to each other and the world, is a part of that.

At the end of the talk we were asked to think about what God's call is on our lives. If we know generally, then to think about specifics, and if we just have no idea whatsoever, then to think about what direction it might be in. A challenge for all of us, that definitely puts us in the right frame of mind.

The speech was followed by Communion, which is always cool, and then we went out to eat. Getting to know one another is an important part of the CG experience as we are big on supporting one another and being a real community.

Next week we'll be meeting at J-life to have our service service. Should be fun!

What is the Bible?

Today we had an amazing discussion that centered around an important question: What is the Bible? Is it "the Word of God"? Is it a group of inspired books? Are we literalists? What to we believe inside it? Many of us seemed to fall along the same lines of thinking, but ultimately, we decided that it didn't matter if we didn't agree. What did matter was that we could look past our differences and get along. This concept is a core part of who we are at Common Ground and what we want our community to be.

We ended our discussion with an AMAZING time of worship. It was really awesome to sing together, totally celebrating God. After that we ended the more structured part of our get together and moved on to an adjoining room to pig out on some good eats. Thank you Gerry for feeding us all!

The Missing Piece

Yesterday was truly amazing. Its hard to even find the words. In our discussions it became very apparent that we are all of one heart and one mind regarding the direction we want Common Ground to go in. We all want to be of service to others. We all want to live in an attitude of love and acceptance. We all want to have a close-knit community with one another. We want to be family, we want to be friends.

And we have a plan! We are setting all these things in motion in practical ways. We have several service projects in the works and ideas for community building. And as a given, we are all here to worship God. It will be very exciting to see all of this taking shape over the next few weeks and months.

The reVision of the Church

This was my first week back after a three week hiatus & I have to say that it was a good week to come back. We looked at II Cor 4 which is just packed with all kinds of stuff. After reading through the chapter we broke up in small groups to discuss the things that jumped out at us, and there was a lot to talk about. The things that people noticed ranged from the clay jars in verse 7 to verse 2, which talks about renouncing "secret and shameful ways".

After awhile we moved on to talk about how this chapter could apply to the church as a whole and started a list of the things the church was both good and bad at. On the good side we listed things like helping people in financial crises and providing a place of sanctuary for people to run to. On the bad side we talked about things like mixing politics into Christianity and not providing a balance between the collective and the individual relationship with Christ.

After closing our discussions we moved onto worship, and then to a time of prayer. Overall it was a great service that provided a time for us to share our thoughts on important issues with one another & find a sense of commonality. On the surface, we don't look like one another, but in our hearts we are very much the same.