No Place Like Home . . . Group

Being in Richmond for almost three weeks—spending time on the Wilderness Retreat, living on the campus of the Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond, and participating in the Worship and Preaching Conference led by Tony Campola and Kate Campbell—was a rich and fulfilling time for me as I began the sabbatical. But I have to confess, when I arrived in Houston on Thursday, May 24, it was very good to be home again. And two days later, I was able to have dinner with my Life Team, a group of folks who’ve been meeting together on a fairly regular basis for almost three years now. The group was kind enough to schedule a meeting while I was in town, and it was fun sharing my experiences with them, and hearing what’s going on in their lives, too.

We first came together during UBC’s Forty Days of Purpose back in the Fall of 2004. We had little in common, and some of us didn’t even know each other. We are young, middle-aged, and then there’s Bill and Linda and Kay and me. And though we came from different places, we seem to have found a sense of community as we’ve shared life together now for almost three years.

It was really good to spend an evening with Kyle and Debbie, Patrick and Chris, Wendy and Brian, Linda and Bill, and of course, Kay. And on this evening, Jason and Christy and Cooper and Cade joined us. We often eat together (as we did on this evening), usually pray together, and more than likely end up talking about what’s going on in our lives. And on this evening, the group acted interested as I told stories of what I’d been doing while on Sabbatical.

It was good to be home again. And it’s always good to have a group who are like family, in the best sense of that word. If you don’t have a community of faith that you meet with regularly and share life together, you ought to find one or start one. Who knows? You might need to go home sometime yourself.

Care-full-y,
rick