Participation

I'm sitting on our back porch here at the condo watching late evening golfers play through and eating a big bowl of vegetables. I came down with a cold this week so its been kind of a slow day. But the kids are in bed now, Amber's doing yoga at the beach with some friends, so I figured it would be a good time to blog.

Something happening this morning that is worth posting about and I think is sort of a milestone event in the life of our church. It certainly is nothing that will make the papers - no dramatic healings or 1000 people getting baptized. No, this event is of the mustard seed variety...Insignificant on public radar screens, yet evidence of the kingdom among us, even among us as a church family.

After worship, I took Jackson and Chloe to the park as I often do on Sundays. Over the past few weeks we've had a few new families come into the community. They each found us through whatischurch.com, which is kind of odd because in 3+ years of having this website there have only been a few local residents come to our group because of the site and no one that I can think of actually stay. Now three couples have in the space of three weeks. Anyway, I was curious how "circle time" went, which is our way of giving everyone a chance to address the group (similar to an AA meeting), so Amber filled me in on the ride home.

She shared with the group that she has been having the desire to take communion together on a regular basis again. That has mostly been a sporadic practice for us in the past, but ever since last summer I have had the same desire. But here's the dilemma - if it is left up to me, it will continue to be a sporadic event. I've thought about delegating the task, because after all...good churches take communion together right? But that never felt right, so I've just let it go until it was the right time. This morning, the group decided to begin taking communion together once a month. And here's the kicker - every month a different person or family will take the responsibility to bring and serve the elements to every one else in the group, and one of the new families requested to serve the first time next week. The group also decided that on that particular Sunday each month we will meet at a park at the beach to give the Freeman's a little break from hosting.

Like I said, no big deal right? But wait, something enormously important could be missed if you weren't looking for it. No one told the group that it needed to come up with a way to take communion on a regular basis. No one asked for volunteers to fill a void that is assumed to be a function a church cannot live without. It just happened. The beauty is, now no one needs to be looking over some poor soul's shoulder making sure they pull their weight. The group together will assume this responsibility and make it part of our regular worship.

Excuse me if I sound like Dick Vitale, but you can't coach that.

In my many years of church experience, I have heard on more than one occasion someone complain, "Why don't we have more of _______?" or "Why don't we do ______?" It was rare that those same people ever suggested who might accomplish _______ or how it might be done. If they did, it was usually some already over-burdened leader who needed to champion their cause. To me, that is not participation - that is passing the buck. However, participation is also not just doing whatever the "leaders" tell you to do. True participation, and therefore true community and true discipleship, occurs when, as Paul says in Romans 12:3,4, "The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him. In this way we are like the various parts of a human body. Each part gets its meaning from the body as a whole, not the other way around."