Community

I was thinking this morning about how important community is. We have such a great "community" here in Austin and I feel so blessed that our kids are growing up around that. Every Tuesday night we have City Group at our house and Nate leads it. We have gotten to be very close with these people and they have become family to us in a way. I feel that I have very special friendships with these people and I am so thankful.

Nate told me about an epiphany of sorts that he had a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me. He said that he was out having a beer with our pastor and a couple of other guys...talking about Jesus and what it looks like to be a follower. He realized how cool it was to be sitting and drinking a beer with the same guys he can talk about Jesus to. I mean, growing up, we both kept those groups of friends separate. There were the friends you could drink and party with. The friends you could pray with and talk about Jesus to. The other friends that you might open up to about blatant sin in your life. Never did these friends mesh. At least not for either of us. It feels really good to have such a healthy group of friends who we can do all of those things with.

Last night, we had Sunday Night Dinner at our house and some people from City Group came over and we all made our own pizzas and played Cranium. Jess played with us and made pizza with us. Ava bugged each of the people to come play her own game with her down on the living room floor. A few of them got suckered in. I can tell that the girls LOVE it. They get so excited when they see people pulling up and they don't want them to leave when it's time to go home. I think even Matt is starting to enjoy this community of people we share life with.

It made me realize how much our girls are starting to love community too. They are getting to witness people gathering together to hang out, eat food, love Jesus and drink beer.

I love it.