Life doesn’t happen in church. Church should be a great place for people to prepare for life, and it can help provide us shelter when the heat and storms of life come at us. But life happens at home, in your workplace, while your traveling, in your neighborhood, at the ball games, on vacation, at school, at the hospital and all the places we find ourselves during the week.
It’s in those times away from church that tell the most about us. It’s how we live from Monday to Saturday that define our faith. Those are the times our true character is revealed. It’s how you treat your wife during the week. It’s how you respond to your children when they let you down. It’s how you handle those conflicts at work. It’s how you handle your finances and your time.
Our challenge every week is to live out what we hear and learn about on Sunday mornings. That can be a difficult thing when things don’t go your way. When you get bad news, when you get great news. It’s in those hard times and good times that community is so important. Having some other people to share those times with you is an incredible help.
When life happens who do you have that will be there? Is there someone in your life that you can turn to for advice, for comfort, for support? Are you providing that for someone else?
Life change happens best when you are doing life with other people. When you open your life to others and let them into your world you take a risk, but the rewards can be incredible. When you are part of small group of people that you can share your life with, it helps you live out your faith during the week. You can build on what you heard at church and help each other live it out. You can encourage each other, pray for each other, challenge each other, support each other and have fun together.