We had an awesome House Church gathering last night!! We’ve been following the Gospel passages for the weeks of Lent (a relatively new thing for some in our group). Last night we focused on Mark 1:9-11 – the baptism of Christ. We framed the whole evening in the Taken (Chosen)/Blessed/Broken/Given metaphor the Nouwen uses in Life of the Beloved. We greeted folks at the door with a large chunk of bread, looked them in the eyes, and said “(name), you are chosen by God, you are his beloved”. We blessed one another by tearing off a bit of our bread and gave it to someone while telling them something of how they bless us. We then noted our brokenness, both the bread’s and ours, and we gave communion to one another.

It was cool discovering how we are also God’s Beloved and what it means to be chosen/blessed/broken/given to the world. It was very powerful and moving. We ended with praying for one another. Several folks commented on how present God seemed all evening. This was doubly exciting for me since I’ve wanted to experiment with more experiential acts of worship and more liturgy (which people didn’t know we were doing, but we were).

Sarah and I also shared some news (of which I refered in a previous post), but can’t share here yet. We have a couple more phone calls to make before we make it very public.