Friday, March 29, 2024

Finding God in the midst of community

I had a fun conversation with person who was fairly new to faith and new to being a regular part of any church. It started out with, “Pastor John, this church thing really surprised me!”

That led to a funny conversation from my point of view. It was funny because this person was realizing for the first time, many things that regular church going people take soundly for granted. The conversation went something like this — “I never realized that being a part of this community and being a part of all the things that a church does would turn me into a Christian. I have always believed in God but I have never really been sure about all the other stuff that goes with it. But, the more I am part of the regular life of church, the more I see that what Jesus says can actually apply to my life.”

I was quite tickled by the whole conversation. Imagine church turning somebody into a Christian!

I gently challenged this person to figure out how it happened and what was going on with them and all their circumstances. I talked about the Holy Spirit working and how some of it we catch, some of it we only see in hindsight and probably most of it blows right by us without any of us being aware of it at all!

The conclusion this person came to was that, the deliberate focus on being thankful as a whole community and the focus on helping and serving other people in need made a difference in this person’s life that they could actually feel and somehow measure in an emotional, internal way.

All this had me reflecting on of one of the more famously quoted Scripture verses in 1st John 4:7, “Beloved let us love one another, for love is from God and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.”

I think this is a distillation of what my surprised Christian friend was saying, that when a community seeks to be a community that thanks God and serves others in the name of God they then know God and see Christ in their midst. That is what 1st John goes on to say in verse 9, “God sent his only son into the world that we might live through him.”

“Where do you find God,” is an oft asked question. Answers can run the gamut, from nature to friends and family, books, golf course to quiet time. I think the ancient answer of gathering together in a multi-generational community where the people seek to love and worship God, to love one another, to be thankful and to serve others is an answer that can be either easily taken for granted or quietly surprising.

The truth is, being a part of a church makes a big difference in a person’s life. It is the place where God is known and Christ is revealed.

Photo: Pastor John Weisenburger St. John’s  Lutheran Church  Kasson

 

Dodge County Independent

Dodge County Independent
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Kasson, MN 55944

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Kasson, MN 55944

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