Better Together

My Dan and me
Home from summer camp
Valleydale Baptist, mid-90s

"Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of [Jesus's] return is drawing near." (Hebrews 10:24-25)

Because we moved umpteen times when our kids were kids, we changed churches more times than a Methodist circuit rider. At the time we joined Ridgecrest Baptist North in Trussville, our youngest had not yet made a public profession of faith in Jesus Christ. So during the last hymn of the service, I whispered, "Daddy, Rebecca, Ben, and I are about to walk down front to join the church, but don't feel pressured. Just pray and do whatever God tells you to do."

When four of us stepped into the aisle, seven-year-old Dan followed right behind. I asked, later, what helped his decision. He said, "God said it would be a whole lot easier to go down with y'all now than all by myself later."

Beloved, God designed us for "koinonia" - communion and fellowship. So get involved in mankind. Encourage one another and build each other up! 

No man is an island,

Entire of itself,

Every man is a piece of the continent,

A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,

Europe is the less.

As well as if a promontory were.

As well as if a manor or thy friend's

Or of thine own were:

Any man's death diminishes me,

Because I am involved in mankind,

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;

It tolls for thee.

Devotions for Emergent Occasions, John Donne, 1624.