What a day...

Today was a big, big day. We watched some new and dear friends get baptized. We were commissioned as covenant members at our new church, we had lunch and then dinner (broken up by an afternoon of car repairs) with our small group. We celebrated salvation and resurrection and community. It was awesome!

Moving to a new church was a huge deal for us. It came after approximately five years of prayer that started with "There's got to be something more," wandered through "Wait," and ended up with "Now's the time to go." We absolutely love the people at our old church, and we are thankful that the body of Christ is one. Otherwise, we never could have gone.

So why did we leave? Vision. Our new church has a decidedly "missional" view of ministry. The gospel is central. Jesus is THE most important thing of all. The Great Commission defines our role in the world in theory and practice. It's pretty simple.

We are part of a small group that meets on Sundays around 11:30. We have lunch together, kids play all over the place, the adults and sometime some of the teens sit around the table after lunch, eating dessert and sharing thoughts on the sermon. Then we pray for each other. It's discipleship in the most real, relational form I've ever experienced. It's full of love. It's family.

Then during the rest of the week we walk in the world where the Lord has planted us, we go to Bible study together, we text, we talk on the phone, we have coffee, we go to dinner, and we serve in community missions together.  We pray for lost friends and family, and when they visit our group, we love on them huge. Our two newest small group members visited the second week we were in the group. Within a month, both prayed to receive Christ. They were the ones baptized today. Amazing.

So at the end of this day, I sit here, simply grateful. God is so good.

On a lighter note...

You know you're from the South when one of the first things your brother has to do to get your dad's farmhouse ready for post-funeral visitors is to get rid of the machine gun parts (non-working, don't worry) and moonshine (unfortunately we fear that may have been working just fine) sitting on the kitchen counter.

I love my family. And I love my l'il bro for handling the details.