Falling Up

We had a great meeting the other night (June 21). Thanks for the good times chatting about the Good Book. We missed those of you who weren't able to make it, and you missed my awesome made-from-scratch Salsa Verde. Here's a recap of our topic "Falling Up" from Acts 2-3 and Deliberate Simplicity, chapter 2:

"Pentacost" literally means "50 Days" and refers to the period of time between the Exodus from Egypt and God giving the Israelites the Law on Mt. Sinai. It was the festival of Shavout or "Feast of Weeks", celebrated yearly by the Jews. It's at this time God decides to send the Holy Spirit. Think He's trying to send a message? Exodus: God descends on the mountain in fire and gives the Law in order to form a new people with a specific purpose and unique, holy lifestyle; Acts: God descends on the disciples with "tongues of fire" and fills them with the Holy Spirit in order to form a new people with a specific purpose and unique, holy lifestyle. God parallels the official start of the church with the formation of the Israelite community. This gathering of Jesus Followers was given a special mission to demonstrate a unique way of living, which focused on loving God and loving others. They witness to the resurrection of the Messiah Jesus, sell their stuff to help out others in their need, hang out all the time, eat a lot, and generally be super cool. We identified these things that the early church devoted themselves to and asked ourselves, "What are we devoting ourselves to and what does that say about who/what we love?"

So, we find that when the Holy Spirit falls down, people's hearts "fall up" in love with God and with others. It's the one surefire way to know that the Holy Spirit is in a people.

We discussed the evidence of the Holy Spirit, which included crazy stuff like speaking in tongues, miracles, and other things that those of us at this particular meeting admitted to not seeing very often. Browning in DS quotes Harry Trumbull, who states that if we aren't willing to share Christ, maybe we should ask if we're saved ourselves. We asked, "Do we really have the Holy Spirit?" We shared stories of weird things we'd heard about, weird things we wished happened to us, and some others.

Mike H. started yelling something about needing a church sign.

The final point was made that God does different things for different people at different times to confirm His Word, but one thing is the same: When the Holy Spirit is around, people testify of Jesus and love each other. We're not going to discount crazy stuff happening, but we're not going to fake it to seem spiritual either. We're going to be a church that focuses on the essentials and lets God do what He needs to do with the other stuff. We will be a Spirit-filled church, and hopefully everybody will know it by the love we show for God and others.

To wrap up, we discussed the Deliberate Simplicity chapter in light of the work of the Holy Spirit. We asked, "Did the early church have an US or THEM focus?" The conclusion was neither and both. The early church focused on Christ and out of obedience to Him found ways to grow current believers while reaching out to those who didn't know Jesus yet. We want to be that kind of local church, one that each person, no matter where he or she is in their journey, finds the love and support needed to take the next step towards a fully surrendered life in Christ.