A few months ago, I attended a Snofun weekend at Peniel Bible Conference. I helped in the kitchen so that our oldest could attend the middle school weekend. The campers played on a huge sledding hill, in addition to listening to speakers and having small groups. The enjoyed great food and chose from extra activities that ranged from tearing broken tree limbs out of the woods, to sewing quilting squares in front of the fire.
The decision to attend the weekend wasn't a simple one for me. I did in fact jump at the chance to volunteer, mainly because I believed the Giant would benefit from the ministry. I trust the individual who planned the retreat. More than that, I long to see ministry take place at this location. Not that I don't believe that it does. I believe that many people, young and old, have been blessed and met with God at Peniel through the years. By contrast our time at Peniel (10 months as employees) just about wrecked us. So I thought it would be good for me to go up there and see good things happen. Yet in my gut I wondered if I'd lost my mind volunteering to go to "that place."
Peniel is a community. Whether paying camper, youth attendee, adult speaker or volunteer, there's a sense of a person being "a Peniel-er." After campers had gone to bed, we adult Peniel-ers sat up (way too late) and talked about the place, the situation it now faces, and mostly our strong desire to see new and good things happen there. What is it, someone asked, that makes this place so meaningful and special to so many?
Community. As my friend eloquently explained, we are built for heaven. God designed us to want the kind of life that we will have in heaven, in fellowship with believers and being of one mind and desire- to worship God together. When we go to a place on earth where believers live in community, we experience a pale shadow of what we're destined for. Our hearts recognize it, we taste it, and we love it. Catherine had more to say than that, but that's a brief synopsis of her thoughts, which stayed with me.
This weekend, we came to the US headquarters of our missions agency, which shall remain nameless. We came to celebrate the wedding of two young people we got to know in the last three years, while we lived as part of the community on the sending base. Being here reminds me: I love community! On the sending base, families and individuals have private apartments or dorm-like situations. They share some meals during the week, and they meet often to pray in support of one another and their task. That task is to recruit, train, and pray-out new missionaries, and to provide a place of support and management for those on the field. It's a beautiful place physically as well as spiritually, and many come here for healing from the demands of missionary life.
Every time we come, we find ourselves wishing there were some way we could become a part of this place. As we wait to be sent out, we have lived here for periods of a few months at a time and have loved it. For a variety of reasons, we can't do it long-term now. There's no glamour in helping out the overworked maintenance staff (well, maintenance man now- HELP WANTED) or helping to prepare some of the meals. Yet we long for it. Even our kids feel a pull to be a part of it again. Something in our hearts knows that Yes, this is a way for the church to do life together. We read accounts of the early church in Acts and we see something beautiful but incredibly hard to achieve in an imperfected world.
I'm not advocating a withdrawn or monastic way of life, Christians locked away associating only with other believers. In fact in committed communities, the opposite happens. People are strengthened in their commitment to go into the world and affect it for Christ. I just want to see more Christians do life together, sharing with one another as we have need, blessing and encouraging one another, and working in our giftedness. We, our family, long to have an open-door policy with our friends and neighbors that goes beyond hospitality, to offering refuge and warmth. With joy we attend lunch after worship together with our church family, and with joy we invite, invite, invite.
Come on over. Pray with me. Do life with me. We were made for this.
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