Growing Pains

Growing hurts! Anything that grows in size must, at some point, stretch. Stretching is painful.

Tonight at Creekside was, in my opinion, a great step forward in the growth of our church family. We had the second of "Open" night. We meet each third Sunday night with any of the adults who want to come to be open in our worship, thoughts, and prayers for each other. It is a time of sharing and caring for one another. It is a time to vent if need be. It is a time of expression to our heavenly Father.

Tonight was special because people really "opened" up and shared some things that to an onlooker without knowledge of the love of God and the Spirit of our family would have thought there to be a fight about to break out. In the midst of this time of somewhat of a disagreement, there was a sense of peace that prevailed. I know that ultimately all peace comes from God but I wanted to share some observations I had without revealing any of the conversation due to confidentiality.

Observation #1: I saw the love of Jesus revealed through people disagreeing without attacking. That is unusual in our heritage. People tend to want to be "right." People do want their "say" and sometimes they want their "way" too. But this was not the case tonight. People were allowed to be open with one another and leave as brothers and sisters in complete love for each other.

Observation #2: I saw the art of shepherding in action. In my past, when an "elder" stands up in a meeting where everyone else is seated, that usually means trouble. Tonight when the "shepherd" stood up, he said not a word, but simply by standing offered comfort to us all. It was amazing. I know why that happens. This shepherd, like all of our shepherds at Creekside, is a man of God who is humble in nature and non-intimidating in spirit. He was there to comfort an uncomfortable situation. That is what a shepherd is supposed to do.

Observation #3: I saw a man fall to his knees in prayer, pouring his heart out to God. Verbally crying out! Openly in the Spirit! Challenging in his prayer! Instead of being asked to "calm down" or made to feel like and idiot, a woman in the crowd stood up and walked to him during his prayer and knelt with him as he finished an emotional outpouring to God. Awesome!!

There was more that I could BLOG about, but suffice it to say, It was very spiritually uplifting! Praise God! By the way, for those of you who can't read this for trying to "figure out" what the controvery was all about, the disagreement was insignificant compared to the uplift we all recieved in the Spirit. I guess you'll just have to wonder;).