By day 2, our team was starting to get comfortable and rely on each other.
We started our day at the church with praise and worship, and bible study, this time looking at Deborah's example in Judges. The cycle of behavior of the Israelites in Judges was to take baby steps away from God's direction, only to look up and see that they had wandered away into sin and idolatry time after time, resulting in oppression by the very people groups they cavorted with. They would inevitably cry out in remorse and repentance, and God would raise up an anti-hero used by God to rescue and restore his people. Deborah led for twenty years before God used her for His rescue, but she showed a servant's heart that wasn't afraid to walk alongside her people, and still challenged them to rise to be their best.
The theme of God's rescue really struck me, and I kept coming back to it throughout the weekend. Even now I know there is something more there to be unpacked in my own life.
Concord Unplugged
Devotion and journaling time throughout the sanctuary
One specific challenge for this group of 7 students will be to come back to Concord Baptist better equipped to be leaders, and more firmly established in their faith. As Deborah served others, our team served the church that was hosting us by beginning to remake their student youth space. No one among the church staff was willing to take credit for the original color scheme, but suffice it to say that the bold teal, purple, blue, orange and red were outdated at the least. In one afternoon, our team painted a large group space as well as 4 break-out rooms, cooperating, supporting, and literally backing each other up. The heat and humidity were stifling, but everyone worked consistently, and the results were beautiful. It was clear that the group was coming together today.
So much ick
The teal room began to transform first
We were so lucky it was a paint and primer combo!
Everyone had a part to play, and everyone played their part
For impact, look at the purple room pic from yesterday!
In somewhat ironic timing as our group was gelling nicely, we were joined by another mission team from Concord who have served here in the past--led primarily by an adult community group/Sunday school class. They have significant group cohesion, and we were just leaning into ours. Concord is a big enough church that none in our group were well acquainted with the others, and here seemed to be another test of unity. I don't know how their group felt about being joined by ours, but I know that several in our group were intimidated by role ambiguity, myself included! But in another demonstration of how God's family is made to be different from the world, the walls came down.
~~~I interrupt this post to bring you an important message:
This post is brought to you by the game Catchphrase!~~~
Our team has had such a fun time bonding over the game Catchphrase, of course we brought it with us to break the ice. After the community group provided a truly spectacular spread (in which Griff introduced us all to slaw buns, which are exactly as they sound), they joined our game in calling out guesses about what phrase was being described as time ticked down, and in much laughter and fun. It was especially funny to watch how the different generations connected!
I am truly appreciative of the grace the community group showed in hosting us for dinner and joining us where we were at, including being willing to follow our leaders as we worshipped the God who unites us, and prayed for the community and outreach event scheduled for tomorrow that brought all of us together. We were challenged to pray with people we were less familiar with, and I determined not to get in my own way and soon got the benefit of beginning to know people who had only been names and faces before. Is it surprising that it may be harder to figure out group dynamics within our own people? By the time we left, we began to feel much more like one group than two.
Can you just see our faces asking, slaw buns??
Ever the servant at heart, Mark took the kids to pray with so we could interact with their grownups
If you didn’t know the words you could hum along, but it was cool cool cool to sing and worship at the edge of the lake
The community group had more experience than we did from years past, but we had been with the church serving for several days already, so we all took interest and shared notes
Beginning with our time in England, I have had a growing awareness that it is love and welcome/ acceptance that sets us apart as believers. We are one body, and Christ is our head, and the world will know there is some thing different, that we are Jesus' disciples, if we love one another. Our students are doing great, and I had a reminder in loving today myself.
Read about Day 3 here!
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