‘I love our house group’; this seems to have become our tagline (if ever a house group could have one). It’s often the comment that one of us will make once our evening together comes to a close.
Personally I get so much out of our time together and I really do love our house group. I’m always encouraged by how much we all put into it; practically, intellectually and spiritually. While some house-groups focus on hospitality and fellowship and others on worships and prayer our focus is God’s word. We’ve worked through, chapter by chapter, a good number of books in the Bible since the house-group began approximately 3 years ago. We each take it in turns to lead a week, and it’s always great to see how much the person leading has put into preparing their session.
A few weeks ago though we broke with tradition and, thanks to a wonderful suggestion by one lovely Tom Wynne-Morgan, we decided to share our testimonies of how we became Christians.
It was interesting to realise that although we’ve gotten to know one another really well over the past few years we’ve never actually taken the time to hear about how we each came to be ‘in love with God’.
Hearing the uniqueness of each story, and how God met each of us in our different places, was very encouraging. There are some similarities amongst our experiences; inspirational parents, time spent at Christian camps, the compelling actions of another Christian and, even amongst two people, a similar moment of realisation and commitment to God whilst starring out of a window.
I would certainly recommend other house-groups taking the time to do the same. It felt very intimate and we definitely shared a very special evening. It was, as Dale said on Sunday, great to ‘go back to our first love’.
We all enjoyed the evening so much that last week we decided to move onto ‘phase two’ and entitled this second session ‘why I’m still a Christian!’
This was once again a lovely time but many a question arose and a few tears shared! It was encouraging to hear of the specific times when God has realigned our lives and reminded us of our hope in Him but we also touched on some more challenging issues.
Just a few to consider; we’re called to be ‘childlike’ in our faith but what does it mean to be a ‘mature’ Christian. Does God call us to be black and white in our understanding of Him or is ok to have grey patches? Does being ‘busy’ for God really bring us any closer to Him? Any thoughts anyone?
Inevitably we didn’t manage to reach any firm conclusions about these issues and perhaps that’s the point. As the church was reminded in Revelations (ch2:v4-5) we should simply go back to our first love. Ultimately it is God’s word, once again, that provides the answer.
We have planned a third session entitled ‘what would we like our faith to be like?’ (or maybe if we take God’s word as our focus it should be called ‘What should our faith be like’). I’ll let you know how it goes!