Passing It On: Faith Community

Isabel at Awana Awards Night -
Her leaders gave her an award for "faith" -
they didn't know this, but God has been speaking
to Isabel about having faith and trusting Him

It’s been almost six months since Audrey left.  In the days leading up to her moving out, Matt was struck with the need to steward the time we would spend in the car after dropping Audrey off in her new home.  We would leave our home with a sister, a daughter, and come back home feeling that loss deeply.  So he reached out to friends and family, asking them to send a voicemail that would help make that drive easier.  When he compiled those voicemails, we had well over an hour of messages. As we drove home, we heard words of encouragement, words of wisdom, words of healing, words that pointed to the Savior that both calls and releases, that sends and sustains.  Those words were life to us in those moments.  They were a healing balm on an open wound.  Matt downloaded those messages to the girls’ ipods and they chose to title them “Faith Community” and I am totally serious when I tell you they listened to those messages every night before they went to bed for weeks.  They still listen to them from time to time when they are missing Audrey.  And my girls learned what it means to have a faith community and to need a faith community.  I can offer my girls words of comfort, but what I can not offer them on my own is a web of people who see their hurt, feel that hurt with them, and point them to the God who heals.  We are so blessed to have parents who have been examples of faith to us, and we value their Godly influence in our children’s lives.  We recognize the reality that we are the first and foremost influence in our children’s lives.  But at times, they rebel against that influence, and we want a fortified line of God-following people acting as a fence to hem them in should they wander.  We are blessed to call many of those people family, but we are also blessed to call some of them friends.  And as our children grow in faith and get older, we will continue to encourage them to find and invest in their own faith community.  We encourage them to build relationships with other kids at church.  That means showing up to church on Sunday, driving them to Awana

Sofi at Awana Awards Night
Her leaders gave her an award for "wisdom" -
not knowing this is what her name means.

on Wednesday, making time for play dates.  We want to send a strong message that participating in a faith community takes effort and is worth every bit of that effort.

Our children have also been on the other end of being a faith community – they have helped us make and drop off meals, shop for people in need, visit a friend who is sick, pray for someone who is hurting.  We want our kids to see that a faith community is a living and acting body of people doing God’s work together.  This is a high priority in our home.  It supercedes sports and activities and weekend outings.  We don’t just attend church.  We belong to a community.  But as important as this value is to me now, I can’t say that it was always the case.        

When the girls were younger, and I was up to my ears in diapers and snotty noses and cries of “Mommy, up!” I rarely left the house, except to go to work.  Confession: I missed church more often than I attended.  I had great reasons; a whole list of valid excuses.  The work involved in getting 2 toddlers out the door by myself, the missed naps, the tantrums, the long drive, the exhaustion that ensued after a busy morning… come Saturday night, I would rehearse these insurmountable odds in my head and I was beat before I started.  The Sundays I did make it out the door, I was often frustrated and flustered.  Our church offered weekday community groups for women, and I remember thinking that it would be wonderful to sit with a group of moms, having grown up conversations and sipping coffee without toddlers grabbing at our ankles.  But again with the long list of valid excuses.  So I never went.  I grew up in church, I have always valued having a place to worship and grow in my faith.  But as a young mom, I didn’t grasp the importance of a faith community. 

What is a faith community, you ask?  It’s a group of people who share your faith.  And so much more.  It’s a lifeline, a support system, a safe place to land.  It’s people who will notice when you are missing, encourage you when you’re struggling, celebrate your victories, grieve your losses.  It’s a place where you serve and encourage and come alongside of others on the same journey.  Where you use those gifts that God planted in you.  I could read my Bible and listen to sermons online and download new worship songs and grow in my faith without ever leaving my home.  But those things I listed?  Those things happen when I haul myself and my trail of children out the door and show up to church.  To community group.  To parenting classes.  It takes work, so much work.  It takes work to schedule and plan and prepare and just get the heck into the minivan.  People, I am not even kidding you.  Getting everyone beautified and making sure every baby need imaginable can be met with the contents of a diaper bag is craziness.  Do you know that I leave for church on Sundays and my community group on Thursdays an HOUR EARLY so Zion can nap in the car?  Because heaven forbid, you drop the world’s happiest baby off in the nursery or with a sitter having skipped his nap.  That sweet baby will certainly turn into a childcare provider’s worst nightmare and I will be called out to come get him.  After all that work to get there.  So we leave an hour early. 

So much work, but aren't they just lovely?
Oh my heart.

It’s not just the physical work of getting there that you will have to push through.  It’s the relational work of putting yourself out there and meeting people and connecting to complete strangers.  It’s like dating all over again, and I did not love dating.  I found a cute boy in middle school and I hung on for dear life until he proposed.  For real.  But if you find yourself someone or a group of someones who will accept you for you and challenge you to be the best version of you, you had better hang on to them.  I tried community groups I didn’t click with and found one that is worth driving a sleeping baby around for an hour just to be apart of.  This group of women prayed me through my pregnancy and responded to every text through my 20 hours of labor.  They took me out for a day in the city after Audrey left when I would have been just as happy to crawl into a hole.  Every one of them has encouraged me with Scripture and inspired me with their faith.  My girls are watching this, seeing that I value this faith community, learning what it means to serve and be served by the body of Christ.  Matt and I strongly believe that this value of faith community is crucial to passing on our faith to our children.  I mentioned in my last post that casual conversations have been called the greatest predictor of faith that will carry on into adulthood.  But belonging to a faith community – worshipping together; serving and being served by other believers – comes in as a close second in our book. 

I can tell you more great stories and compelling anecdotes, but the truth is, we should make faith community a priority because it’s what Scripture instructs us to do.  Hebrews 10:24-25 says,

 “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

These instructions come in a group of exhortations which are not a list of “thou shalts,” but rather a response to Christ’s sacrifice that provided a way for us “draw near to God” (v 10).  Jesus gave everything so that we could be a part of God’s family, and as God’s family we are called to come together as an act of worship and a way to encourage each other on in the faith.  This is not just another “requirement;” it is a gift. 

So this is me, spurring you on.  This life is hard, and we are meant to do it together.