Being Bold, Yet Gentle (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Went away to Kiah Ridge with the church on our Weekend Away - and came back once again refueled and ready for action of a different kind.

The weekend was very challenging practically, which is the kind of challenge I love. If I can't take it and go "Okay! This is what I am going to change about x y and z!" then I seem to get frustrated and confused how to apply it to my life.

Looking at Hebrews, and in particular Hebrews 10:24 - 25, I was so challenged as to what church is and what it means and how we can be encouraging our friends and people at church. Praise God ! It's fantastic to be encouraged and challenged about these things and I've been so pumped ever since.

Usually, when someone says "Don't give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing" and explains the importance of following people up, making sure that they are okay in their walk with God and all that other stuff, I immediatley run out and tackle anyone who wasn't at church the previous week, screaming and yelling things like "WHY WEREN'T YOU AT CHURCH?! WHY ARE YOU TURNING AWAY FROM GOD?!"

God is ever patient and forgiving with me. Thank goodness for that. He lovingly showed me over the weekend something that seems so ridiculously obvious now that I look at it, but that I couldn't see before.

"Meeting together" isn't meeting together at a 9:30 service, or a 10:30 service, or at 6pm service, or at youth group, or bible study, or any other structured activity. Meeting together is simply, meeting together, catching up, hanging out - and when there are two or more, it's church! Augh, so simple. How could I be so dumb not to realise it?

The whole point is to not get hung up on attending a service or activity, but to keep meeting with Christians, keep encouraging them to honor God and to encourage others. It just makes so much sense.

And so now, I'm trying to be a lot more gentle. It's okay if the conversation doens't result in a total commitment from the other person to church, and it's also okay to invite people to church / youth group / whatever. The most important thing is that they (and us) don't stop meeting up with other Christians and encouraging each other. I'm not saying that church is irrelevant or anything like that - I'm just making the point that Hebrews isn't specifically talking about a 6pm service or anything.

Which has been view changing for me.

Praise God :)