CONNECT: Event or Lifestyle (Pt 4)

That’s why CONNECT can’t be just another religious event on your calendar. It has to become the living out of what you have heard and what you believe as being instruction from the Lord who saved you.

But an event, even one that happens every Thursday or Sunday or Tuesday night, won’t get you there. CONNECT won’t create Fellowship. It’s the Spirit of God who does that. But CONNECT should possess all the right pieces to put your little band of Christ-followers in the right place for God to do what we know He wants to do among us.

And it can happen, even in Lancaster County! Let me show you a snapshot from one of our groups that is just starting to figure this out:

Just to update you all on our status.. I was hit pretty hard for a few weeks with some major spiritual warfare and depression.. Since my correspondence with you last, several of you have contacted us to see how we were doing. I wanted you to know that this meant a lot to us, and as I’ve thought about it over the past week, that’s exactly why we are in group together.. The easy thing is to go through life alone, and to never open up and share your heart and achings with others.. But this is contrary to the essence of the church.. We were made to be in fellowship with God and each other, and the fall has made the antithesis of that a natural tendency. I want you to know that I have a new appreciation for group in light of the past weeks and a better understanding of why and how we need each other, especially in times of static darkness. I’d like us to all be in prayer for how God can shape and mold our group into what He wants it to be and to do for: 1. His glory and worship, 2. A means of spreading the gospel of Christ, and 3. to be a safe and safer place where we, his church, can be real and live life together as seen in Scripture. Going through ruts is a powerful way that God can give us sensitivity to hurting people all around us.

Thanks all for your prayers and support during a tough time.. Please continue to pray for us.. I’ve caught a glimpse at the depth of the spiritual attacks that can come in times of weakness and I now see more plainly than ever that prayer is our greatest and most effective defense against darkness.