Circles are Better than Rows

Most of us don't need one more thing to do.

Our calendars are full enough. Our phones keep buzzing with notifications. Always another email to answer, another appointment to make, another person who needs something from us. We move from one thing to the next, and then we get to the end of the day and wonder where the day went.

And somewhere in the middle of all that, we are trying to follow Jesus.

Most of us want a faith that is more than a Sunday morning. We want to know how to stay connected to God when Tuesday gets difficult. We want to pray without feeling like we are missing something. We want to open the Bible and find more than words on a page. Most of us want to slow down without feeling guilty, make room for people when life already feels crowded, and become more generous, attentive, and present.

Most of us don't need more information about Jesus. We need help learning how to live with Jesus.

And, friends, that is hard to do alone, friends.

When you read about the first Christians in Acts, one word keeps showing up: they. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. They broke bread. They prayed. They shared what they had. They ate together with glad and generous hearts.

Nobody handed those first Christians a devotional book and told them to go home and figure out discipleship on their own. They learned the way of Jesus together.

I think we need that as much as they did.

This fall, we are inviting you to join one of our six Life-Giving Practices small groups.

Over ten weeks beginning the week of September 13, we will explore practices like prayer and Scripture, rest and quiet, fasting and hospitality, service and generosity, community and telling our stories. We won't simply talk about them. We will try them together. There are some things you can learn by reading about them, and there are other things you can only learn by doing them.

So if there is a part of you that wants your faith to become more deeply woven into the life you are actually living, I hope you'll join us.

For ten weeks, let's learn together how to build lives that keep turning us toward Jesus and toward one another.