discipling a generation: If:Gathering

It's not usually in my nature to do this, but I couldn't help but share. Because when something is too good you can't help but share that goodness with others, and you guys. this. is. so. good. I'm not connected to this organization at all, but I believe in it and the women behind it.

I'm watching the recorded sessions of If:Gathering alone in my apartment in pjs, eating take out. But I know there's a community around me right now, on a Sunday night, that's rallying for and with women across this state, this nation, this world to come together and to know Christ deeply.

Community has never meant more to me than it does now. These last few months have been a ride. I've weeped. I've thought. I've belly laughed until I've cried. I've listened. More than all these, though, I've learned what it's like to walk through life in community. To be surrounded by people who invest in your life and you in theirs, to struggle and ask the hard questions together, to go day-to-day knowing you have a tribe that is actively loving and pursuing you.

I'm convinced there's nothing sweeter in life than this.

God created us to be in community. To do life together, not apart. To love each other like Christ loves us. We grow in the context of church, alongside other brothers and sisters actively pursuing the same God.

So who is your community? For me, it's the friends I never get to see but always get to text, it's the people at church that make me feel less of the "new person", it's the virtual friends who encourage like no other a group of women they don't even know. And these people, whether they know it or not, are giving me opportunities to grow in my faith, encouraging me, rooting me on.

I'm sitting here listening to Jennie Allen and feeling like what she is sharing is so dang simple but so true. We love Jesus, not because of a book, or a blog, or a sermon. We love Jesus because of someone. And that someone loved us so much they needed us to understand who God was and what our mission in life was. And we were changed because of that one person.

We live in a generation in which community abounds - through school, and church, and social media, and work, and roommates. But I think often times we miss the point of community because we're swept by the notions of this world instead of the notions of our God.

So if you're like me, and you're stressing about work or school tomorrow (in my case, work is school), take a pit stop. Refuel your soul with Truth alongside a community of women who are actively pursuing the same God as you with the same earnestness, hurt, doubts, and longing as you are.

Until tomorrow (Tuesday) midnight central time, If:Gathering is offering free access to all of its recorded sessions. Don't miss it, seriously. Take a break from the busyness of your life and spend more time with the God who wants for you to know Him better.

Access to If:Gathering's recorded sessions: http://live.ifgathering.com/livestreams/

"God works through the regular, humble people who pray."

I totally believe that. He's working through you, and in you, and I have a feeling He wants to use you in ways you don't even know right now. Let's disciple a generation who is hungry for a God they might not know. Let's love the people in our lives in the small ways God intends for us.