Monday Night Fellowship

I’ve been able to learn a lot from a gathering that happens regularly on Monday evenings. For the past two Mondays, I’ve been able to help out at a group discussion. Basically, we watch a video that talks about some aspect of humanity – be that the topic of emotional luggage, or spiritual breathing, or this week’s topic of shame. These videos, hosted by Rob Bell, present the topics and relate them to God in a very relevant way. The MNF is usually hosted by my co-workers Lee and Curtis, but this week, both of the guys were busy with DemoCrew stuff, so Courtney and I were asked to help oversee our group. This has been one the most meaningful times of true, honest fellowship for me here at The SEED. These topics bring out a range of emotions within our guests, and our staff. Given that this week’s topic was shame, you can only imagine the stories that came out from some of our discussions.

Chit chat about so and so’s mother being raped, or struggling with a heroine addiction for years even though they want to quit. How about being thrown into a bathtub of boiling water when you were the age of 5, or having lived in a foster home after foster home since you were the age of 12? Yeah, we all live with shame alright, and some of us just keep on running but really…it’s how and when we decide to deal with it that’s the important thing. In the video, Rob shares about how shame inhibits our ability to stand before God who gives His love unconditionally. So really, the only way about it is to just be straight up about the crap in our lives. At the end of it, there’s nothing we can do that can make God love us less…that was his tagline for the video, and this tagline became a resonating truth for the people in our room during our Monday Night Fellowship tonight.

I’ve been so blessed to be in the company of people who have lived life in a way that I never have…that they would be vulnerable in sharing their experiences so that we can all learn together about this thing we call life…it’s touching. It makes that gap between “us” and “them” invisible when you begin sharing in your brokenness, our struggles, and our hearts with each other and realize that we’re all on a journey…different journeys, but we’re all travelling together.

I don’t know if I’ve already said this yet…but I’m going to miss it here.

Much love,
dL