With Hearts As One

With staff working from home, church svces and activities all suspended due to H1N1, our usual flurry of activity in church has come to a standstill. Overnight, my calendar went from super packed to almost empty. As I was sadly cancelling out events on my planner, I felt a bit lost/bored...and so did a few others I'm sure. After all, we're a team that's gotten used to juggling multiple events and tasks.

But interestingly, with all that free time on hand, we've found ourselves meeting up with each other more. We're going cycling, swimming, having dinners, worship sessions etc. Within this short week alone, I've had more deep, lengthy and meaningful conversations with different ones in church, than I've had in months.

And yes, it gives me warm & fuzzy feelings to know that these existing friendships are becoming richer....but I think more importantly, this week has reminded me that ministry is not about about running from one event to the next, it's really about building and nurturing precious relationships. It sounds like so duh rite? But it really is an easy trap to fall into when you're so busy you don't even have time to run personal errands.

We build God's church by coming together "with hearts as one." But if we don't deliberately carve out space for these relationships to grow, how can our hearts be knitted together? I think this whole H1N1 thing has made us appreciate the community we have in church a lot more. :) And I think when svces resume, our people are going to come back with a greater spiritual hunger as well. Looking forward to next Sun!!