"Ah ha"

I was thinking about all the different components of our wedding ceremony earlier and I kind of had a bit of an "ah ha" moment. In our ceremony we'll be serving each other communion and we'll also be washing each others feet.

Not only is communion a symbol of Jesus dying on the cross for us and his grace, but it also symbolizes community. During the bible times communion was shared when people ate together, building community, fellowship and intimacy with people.

Communion

Communion is "big" in David and my relationship. After we broke up in 2012 things were a little tense between us and we weren't really speaking to each other, almost like there was a wall up between up, but as God does He bashed it down.  We were at something at the church and Mel, who was leading, said we should all pray and ask God to reveal who we should serve communion to. The first person who jumped into my head was David. I was like, "Hell no, you've got to be kidding me", but Gad was like, "yes". I remember saying to God that I would do it but David must go first. The next thing I knew David was walking towards me with bread in his hand. I was like, "God, You win".  When we served each other communion, it was like God broke those walls and started healing in our friendship. I can't explain it, but He started something new that night.

We also shared communion with each other the night Dave proposed, which was really special because it was a way of including God in on it.

Feet Washing

Feet washing was a huge act of humbling yourself and serving someone in bible times. 

A few months before David and I got back together, Jojo had a dinner where we served the boys and got to pray for them. During the prayer session, God was like, "I want you to wash their feet." I was like, "ok". As I went around the circle I started to get really nervous and by the time I got to David, I was a pile of nerves. I remember looking up at him as I started to wash his feet and it was as though the last of whatever wall was still there as completely smashed away by God. It's crazy, but in that moment I also knew that I knew that David was still the one and I was willing to submit to God and let him do what he wanted to do in David's and my friendship and soon new relationship. It's hard to explain, but I just knew God was starting something new.

After I had finished processing all of this, I was like "ah-ha"! And then I got all excited about this, because God certainly knows what He is doing as He orchestrates our big day in 19 days time.

xKx

Gap - Hiding Your Sins

Last week Wednesday at Gap we spoke about how we cover up our sins. 

I told the kids the story of David and Bathsheba, (2 Samuel 11 - 12). When it was time to tell them the story and give the talk, I sat on the floor with them and then told the the story using puppets as each person in the story.   At the end of the story I went into the talk by explaining how David had covered up his sin by killing Bathsheba's husband and how this made God angry. 

I used ice-cream, salt and caramel sauce to illustrate how when we cover up a mistake we  end up with a mess.  I put ice-cream in a bowl, and added salt.  I asked the kids if they liked salt on their ice-cream and they all said no.  I then said, the salt is the mistake we make.  When we steal something, cheat, or like David commit adultery.  When we want to cover up the fact that we did something wrong and sinned, we often hide it by doing something else.  I added the caramel sauce to the ice-cream and covered in salt. 

I then asked if any of the kids wanted to taste it. Two brave kids came and tasted it and they both ran out the room very quickly to spit it out.  

I wrapped up by saying that we don't have to cover up our sins, because it makes if worse than what it is.  God wants us to go to him and to ask for forgiveness and then he cleanses us of our sin.  sometimes we have some sin that has been there for a very long time and we think that God can't forgive that but he can.  It's like a glass that has dried milk stuck in it, (I held this up) when we put it into hot water the milk comes loose, (I dunked the glass into hot water).  God is like the water, washing our dirty dried sin away.  

I had asked one of the elders from our church to come and do communion with the kids.  He explained the story so well to the kids and had them all captivated by what he was saying. It was AWESOME.  We then went into a time of silence and the kids were invited to come up and receive communion.  They were given bread and then had to dunk it into grape juice. 

After communion we prayed and then went off to small groups. 

I don't know how to explain what happened at Gap on Wednesday, but it was literally like the Holy Spirit just fell over the room and kids were soaking it up.  They were so attentive during the talks.  I was completely blown away.  

I really praise God for how He is working in their lives, even when we don't always see it. 

xKx

A little bit of community

Last night was the first cell group of the term. I was like super EXCITED for it last night.

Dave and I had been speaking about community and what it means to us and then somehow we got the idea to do a thing at cell group where we can build community, share about community/fellowship and get people to be real and to share a bit with each other.  We then thought communion would be something awesome to include in the evening, because not only does communion represent the last supper and what Jesus did for us on the cross but it also represents community and fellowship.

I got the "Messy Questions" as I call them from Mel, they're actually called "Honest to God questions".  At the start of the evening everyone chose a question form the bag and we all had to answer it.  Some of the questions are light hearted questions and others are pretty deep.. by some random chance we all ended up choosing the deeper questions. It was pretty funny. 

One of the questions that we had to answer was; "I wish people my age were more..." It was pretty interesting how everyone who is in my age group, 25 - 30 all had the same answer.  We are all very different, in different friendship circles and from different lifestyles, but we all said that we wish that our friends were more focused on building real friendships with their close friends, spending quality time with them.  We all agreed that we live busy full lives focused on everything else that after a while we reach a point of, "I haven't seen my friends in a while". We also agreed that we don't really hang out as much as we used to, and that we don't have deep, real conversations with our friends anymore.

.... It was somehow pretty epic that this question came up during "Messy Questions" because it links to the topic.


Dave gave a short talk on communion, why we do it and how it was done back in the bible times before we ate bread, cheese and drank grape juice.  While we were eating and drinking we had a small amount of discussion of fellowship. 

The thing about communion that is blowing my brain at the moment is that back in the day the disciples not only broke bread to remember what Jesus did for them. They also came together as a community with friends, family and fellow Christians and shared a meal with them. During this time they spoke about the things that were going on in their lives, they were real with each other, they encouraged each other and prayed for one another. 

It blows my mind that the simple act of communion can mean more that just remembering Jesus, it also serves as a reminder of how we need to be living like Jesus.  We need to be loving and accepting of everyone - being willing to share a meal, opening up "our homes" to people and getting real with them and allowing them to be real with you.

This is HUGE in my head at the moment! It also challenges me to be more real and it gives me a desire to want realness from my friends and the people I encounter in life.  I want real community and fellowship with people.

We ended the evening with everyone sharing where they're at, what happened during the holidays and gave prayer requests if there were any before we went into a time of prayer.

Last night was really awesome, God was awesome. He just showed up and filled the room with his presence and created a space for the evening to be a success.  Dave lead the group really well and his talk on communion kind of blew me a way a little.  It was also really cool how everyone opened up and was willing to be vulnerable and share during the Messy questions and during the prayer requests. It really feel like last night was fundamental in the building of a safe place for our cell group to share things with each other without feeling like they are being judged or rejected.

xKx