Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own, - June 4th

     What is the church? If I had a nickel for everytime I heard that question asked I could probably buy a latte or smoothie, essentially I've been heard that question or topic discussed many a time. Being a church leader it is very pertinent to my life and it is a point of conversation that arises and is a subject matter in most books that I pick up. There are many clever descriptions and definitions out there and I think I should put my hat into the ring with my own.

     The church is a Christ centered group of people, they are friends, they are family, the church are the ones who are there when you can't make it on your own. I have always thought that to be true but never more than recently. If you are part of The Community Church (West) then you are the ones that I'm writing about, some of our friends and family here in the UK. As you are probably aware Rebecca and I moved to the village of Overton in Hampshire in the late summer of 2008. At that point we left Goshen and our friends and family, along with other family and friends across other parts of the US. We turned up in this place without many friends and with no family. That was late summer of 2008 almost 6 years ago now (my how time flies).

     Over the course of living here and having the great opportunity to lead the church we have developed many deep friendships, we have truly found friends and family. During this adoption process there have been many ups and downs and the church has been there in the ups and downs. They have been cheerleaders when that was required, they have been prayer warriors, they have been shoulders to cry on and people with whom we have shared a special celebration meal. They have been all of these aspects of support along with daily lifting us up in prayer and gently asking how is it going. Not demanding answers, not being intrusive, rather interested, keen to know how we are doing as much as the 'latest news'.

     How does that make us feel? Immeasurably blessed, just a few years ago we were a couple of Americans who they decided to invite and bring across the ocean so that we could walk with them and eventually lead. A gamble sure, they did not know how we would cope with the cultural changes (there are many, too many to list in a simply blog entry) how we would handle living in the centre of a village and all of the village quirks (again too much for one blog entry). I've never thought of us as risk-takers but moving here was risk and with high risk comes high reward.

     The song Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own came on my Ipod yesterday while I was at the gym and the realisation of those lyrics to the title rung true in my head. I totally know that we can't make it on our own without Jesus as Saviour and the Holy Spirit leading and guiding, but I also know that we can't without others too. I have heard the term church-goer used before, I don't like or use it because we are the church, the people are the church community, we don't just 'go', we are.

      If you are a reader of this blog and not part of a church community can I encourage you to investigate a people, a church community that you can plug into.

Sometimes You Can't Make it on Your Own by U2 written by Bono for his father's funeral