Eaton Ford - Church, life, homelessness

Sean and I met at 20:00 as usual, Jim joined us later as he had another meeting first. We began by talking about church and whether it's better to have small groups networking with one another or larger groups. We couldn't see any reason to change what we're doing, but felt we might benefit from stronger (but informal) links between groups. We also discussed the Moggerhanger meeting on 7th February and Peter Farmer's meeting in Nottingham on 12th.

Next we considered life in Christ as a process. We begin to change long before we commit ourselves to follow him, and after that point we continue to grow in knowledge and grace. It's not true to think of people remaining static apart from a step change at the point when they first believe. So we felt we should get too hooked up on the idea of getting a person 'saved', but rather do our best to meet them where they are now.

We wondered about ways of helping the homeless. Jim told us that he is thinking and praying about doing something for homeless people next Christmas.

We went through CO2 together as a threesome (if that's not a contradiction in terms). Once again we found this to be a useful way of going a bit deeper with one another and it was good to hear how we feel the Lord is leading us individually.

A phrase that was mentioned was, 'Church is built on people who denied Jesus', Certainly true for Peter, and true for Paul as well - he persecuted Jesus' followers.

Jim prophesied, 'He'll give you extra strength, you'll be surprised by how much strength he will give you'. That's quite a promise!