Every Monday my week begins with meetings that last all morning. You might think this is a complaint; after all, it was Milton Berle who said, “Meetings are events where minutes are taken and hours are wasted.” However, in this case you would be mistaken. Monday mornings are one of my favorite times of the week. We start with a Pastoral Care meeting where Kim Witte, our Director of Care Ministry, leads us in going over the needs of the congregation and praying for people who are hurting. We count it a privilege to care for and pray for our Christ Church family, fulfilling Paul’s words to the Galatians to “share one another’s burdens and in this way fulfill the law of Christ.” Then, I move into our Senior Staff meeting where our Executive Director, Kirby Martens, our pastors and I talk through the coming week at the church and work through any issues or challenges. But first, long before we get to that, we take time for Bible study and prayer. We spend roughly an hour reading through the Bible together, discussing the day’s reading, sharing prayer concerns with one another, and then lifting those concerns up to the Lord. I treasure these times!

I love how the writer of Hebrews puts it: “'And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near” (10:25). The word 'neglect' in Hebrews literally means to desert—evoking the image of walking away. In other words, the people used to meet together for encouragement and community but now some have decided they don’t need it and have walked away from it, deserted it. The writer is telling us, “We need this! Christians need community, encouragement, fellowship, accountability – we need to receive it and we need to give it. Life’s too hard to make it on our own; we need one another and are blessed to have one another.”

Monday meetings are not just for Senior Staff. Throughout the ministry areas of Christ Church, departments are meeting regularly with prayer and care on the “agenda,” not just the tasks at hand. I’m so grateful for each one of our staff, just as I know you are, and I’m grateful for their willingness to walk together as they lead us well.

How about you? Do have people who you can encourage today and who can encourage you? Do you have a group you can meet with and count it all joy and not a burden? My prayer for you is that you can find that group, and that you will not neglect meeting together. Maybe it’s a few people in your Community Group, or a couple of friends you’ve made sitting around you in worship, or some people you served alongside at one of our Days of Service. What would it look like for you to reach out and invite them to begin meeting together weekly for prayer, encouragement, and accountability? John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement, called these meetings “Bands.” Band meetings were actually one of the defining characteristics of early Methodists in the 1700’s, a discipleship model for growing in love with Christ and one another. As Kevin Watson points out in his book “The Band Meeting,” “In reflection on Wesley’s class meeting and band meeting structure, George Whitfield once said, ‘My Brother Wesley acted wisely, the souls that were awakened under his ministry he joined in class, and thus preserved the fruits of his labor. This I neglected, and my people are a rope of sand.’”

What an image! None of us want to be a rope of sand; we want to be deeply rooted and connected with one another as we live this life together. My prayer for you is that you will find that connection and begin to experience the fruit of a life lived in deep community.