And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near
Hebrews 10:24-25

Bring a Church worker can be a very lonely vocation. We spend countless hours with other people, We are on call for people and their problems 24/7 and finding someone in ministry you can be honest with and dump on can be a truly difficult thing.  Its not that people at Church don’t care, because they do, but it is your place to be with them not them with you. So my goal has always been to have people outside of my church and community to speak with and grow with.

But I don’t think this is just a problem for Church workers.  I think this is a problem for all people in many walks of life.  You see I think it is one of the devils great tricks. He wants us to be alone.  When we feel truly alone, when we have no one we are talking with about this faith thing then we are so easily tricked into feeling like God isn’t there. Or we believe no one cares including God.

Lately I have been a part of a couple of groups of people who have helped me feel less alone.  People who I really feel care about me, and I can dump on.  I try to do the same for them.  My point here is don’t be alone.  God calls us to live this faith out in community.  He calls us to live it out with others.

I think American Christianity has lost something in our goal of individualism. Many people tell me today their faith is between them and God. Although I agree that it obviously has a personal part, faith is truly lived out in community.  The community helps keep you on the straight path when it comes to theology, faith life, and practice.  It keeps us from going too far down a path of evil.  Its goal is to hold everyone accountable, and more importantly remind them of the God who forgives us for Christ’s sake.

So we come back to, are you alone?  Well with Jesus of course we are not but since we don’t get to see touch and see him in visible form it is probably best to experience this Jesus in community as the body of Christ.  You see; we see Jesus, when we see each other.  We see Jesus when we gather together around the Word of God and sharing our faith in that context. This faith we are given as a gift and we experience all of it in this amazing community.  We also experience it in this community when we experience the forgiveness of sins with body and blood of Christ. We can receive it in private confession surrounded in God’s word.

So today I pray all of us experience this community of the believers in Christ.  We never have to be alone.  Where even if our vocation or job makes us feel alone we have a place where we never are alone again in Christ Jesus through his body the Church.

in Christ,

Steve