Bacchus

I read this today & it really struck a chord with me:

"The neighborhood bar is possibly the best counterfeit there is to the fellowship Christ wants to give his church. It's an imitation, dispensing liquor instead of grace, escape rather than reality, but it is a permissive, accepting, and inclusive fellowship. It is unshockable. It is democratic. You can tell people secrets... God has put in the human heart a desire to know and to be known, to love and to be loved and so many seek a counterfeit," Bruce Larsen & Keith Millar

It makes sense, doesn't it? We were created for confessional community... Community that struggles together, labors together, prays together, fights together, cries together, etc. and when we don't have that, we search for it elsewhere- wherever we can find it. The bar is such a place. On Beach Project, especially the first summer I was down there, generally the most deep, impactful conversations I had were over cigars on the beach at night. It was almost as if we need this semi-rebellious excuse to really dig into each other's hearts & seek the mysteries of God. Silly, I know, but I think that I, as an American male, am in one sense, terribly afraid of being fully known, being "found out" by others as a fraud, as inadequate, etc., but, in another sense, as one created in the image of God, my heart cries to be known fully by another, to know another fully. My soul longs for the day when I will "know even as I am also known" (1 Cor 13:12).

And so I am excited about what's going on at Redeemer Community & (hopefully deepening) at our house... I want to be prone... I'm learning, as time goes by, that vulnerability bleeds vulnerability... If I want us all to be real with one another, I have to first be real... I must first commit to true community before true community can happen... Why has it taken me my whole Christian walk to get this? Dang...

This video's for John Lambuth, room 106, & Sean Leboeuf