Shine Your Light Event

Well, this past Saturday marked our third annual "Shine Your Light" event. Each year for Halloween, we try to take advantage of the one evening a year where our whole community comes right to our front door. Our worship team sets up in my garaged and out onto the driveway and we play Halloween, television and movie theme songs. While the band plays, other family members and friends hand out hot chocolate to parents, candy bags with scripture to the kids and have lots of conversations with the neighbours who hang around for the festivities. It has been a great chance to meet my community and build some bridges with the neighbours around me.
I have been thinking back to all the great costumes that members of our group came up with, the work they put in to making it happen, the talents they shared from cooking a meal to designing the scripture tag etc. not to mention the night of music. It has got me thinking about just how much I appreciate this group I am a part of. This group is made up of our worship band from church and their families. We get together each week to share a meal, study scripture and share our lives and practice music. We learn together, share with each other, support each other and serve together. I am grateful for a group with whom to share this, and for an introvert like myself that is saying a lot! To me it is a glimpse at what the church is supposed to be, learning, sharing, growing ans serving together. I can look back at my spiritual life and clearly recognize that the most fruitful times of my life have been when I have been a part of such a group. We are not perfect...not by any stretch of the imagination (after all I am a part of the group!) but still, there is something significant about having such an experience.
Often I hear from people that you can be a "Christian" without going to church or without being part of a spiritual community. My response to that is twofold - firstly, in my experience a spiritual community has been extremely important for my spiritual walk. From the experience and wisdom I have gleaned to the support in very difficult times, I can't imagine life without it. Secondly, I think of the words of Jesus himself. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (John 13:34-35) Jesus was talking with his disciples and so taken in context we can recognize that Jesus was saying that to be a disciple we must be loving other disciples. It was both Jesus' intention and command that we would be in community with other disciples (how else could we live out the command?). To try to be a follower without being in community would be both outside of His intention as well as disobedient, at which point we would have to ask ourselves are we really trying to be disciples? The flip side, however, is that there is an incredible richness to life lived according to Jesus' intentions and in obedience to His commands, which has been my privilege to experience.
So thanks to my spiritual family for all that you do and for sharing your lives with me. We love all that we get to share with you!