Community

Find your community.
Check out Steve Dallwig's posting Get plugged into one of Chapelgate's Communities. It lists the 6 different community groups formed so far. Please pray about which you are going to join and then join one. Why? Because God calls us to community, to be connected, and to encourage and admonish one another in love. We can only do that last thing if we know each other.

Drop me a note and let me know which one you've joined. I've joined "Fusion," even though I am a bit old for it. (I am not the oldest person there, though!)

Deaf Community.
Speaking of community, last Sunday I did attend the Deaf Reformed Church that meets in room 227. (They have an adult SS class the hour before where they are going over the Westminster Confession of Faith; their younger kids--hearing kids--are in regular childrens' Sunday School.) I was a welcomed visitor. He introduced me and hs daughter translated my comments for him and the congregation. I wish I knew American Sign Language. (Alas, I feel the same way when in Ukraine... my Russian is meager at best. Maybe some day one of their congregation could offer a class in ASL for those of us with normal hearing.)

It was a typical reformed liturgy (unlike Chapelgate's). After Pastor Kenton Hoxie's invocation he took prayer requests and then let the congregation in a pastoral prayer. They recited the Lord's Prayer, the Apostle's Creed, and the Heidelberg Catachism questions 108-110. Then they recited some hymns and spiritual songs. (By "recite," you understand I mean in their languaga, ASL.)

Like our service, much of it was in projected slides, so I could easily (well, fairly easily) follow along. This was the case for the sermon as well, except, of course, while the main points were spelled out in an outline, there was much Pastor said that I did not get. As I wrote to him, later, "I'm sure it was a wonderful sermon."

I shared my email with a few people and we have written. I am always amazed and interested in how God brings people across our paths. Let me always have eyes to see.