I just put the finishing touches on the first in a series of six sessions of Covenant Group training for MVBC. As announced on Sunday, we are launching small groups for members in January. Now the preparation begins. The first session, which I'm teaching Sunday at 4pm, is called, "The Necessity of Community." In preparing, I came across this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together:
If we do not give thanks daily for the Christian fellowship in which we have been placed, even where there is no great experience, no discoverable riches, but much weakness, small faith, and difficulty; if on the contrary, we only keep complaining to God that everything is so paltry and petty, so far from what we expected, then we hinder God from letting our fellowship grow according to the measure and riches which are there for us all in Jesus Christ.
While I don't think we can hinder God, I do think that we dishonor him with the way we treat the church which is Christ's body. It is so easy to value the church in terms of what we can receive instead of who she is--the bride of Christ, purchased with his own blood. If we keep that truth in mind, we will be thankful and rejoice for the fellowship that he does give us, instead of the fellowship that we lack.
If you are at Mount Vernon, come and spend a few hours over the next few Sunday afternoons, thinking together about how the Lord could use you to help others grow in their faith.
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