Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people. And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Acts 2:46-47
Dear Friends in Christ,
How are you growing deeper in Christ?
There are two things to consider: substance and means. In other words: content and method. There might be some particular substance of the Christian faith and life in which you can grow. Perhaps familiarity with the Bible, or developing a heart for Christian service, or understanding our worship, or going deeper in prayer with God. The means, then, is how we go about that growth. How will you read the Bible, how will you develop that heart for service, how will you go deeper in prayer? I would like to write about both of these areas in the weeks to come. Let me start a bit with a summary that gets at both substance and means.
I’ve noticed that there are five things that Christians do together:
1. We celebrate the sacraments together
2. We read the Bible together
3. We pray for each other
4. We share life together
5. We do ministry together
Note that together is an important part of this, not to be overlooked. God calls us into relationship with him, and he calls us into relationship with each other. In large part, God the Holy Spirit works through us, so, being connected, being together is essential to being Christian. Even the Desert Monks who went away into isolation soon found themselves connected to others who sought them out to learn from them, and in some cases, to live with them.
Four of the five that I’ve listed are best done in groups of 6-12. We’ve figured out how to do a good job of celebrating the sacraments in groups of 300. And yes, we pray together and read scripture together and do ministry together in our worship services. But we go so much deeper when we pray with each other one-on-one, or in small groups. We learn so much more from scripture when we are wrestling with the text together, hearing how others have learned or hearing what their questions are. And we more easily share life together when we have the bandwidth to know each other better. All this happens much more easily and much more deeply and richly, in small groups. That’s the appeal of Bible Studies, small classes, and small group ministries.
There are many opportunities to connect in these small groups at St. Peter & St. Paul. How are you engaging in these five things with other Christians?
Yours in Christ,
-Tom
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