Life Together

As posted on Christ the King Wilbraham's website:

It’s been another amazing week of growing and learning at Christ the King! Worshiping, participating in adult forum, and talking with everyone over coffee hour this week helped me get to know many of you, I can’t wait to continue getting to know everyone better over the next couple months. While I learned a great deal about many of you individually, I also discovered some great things about CTK as a whole. First, whether its the bread at communion or the cookies at coffee hour, baking is definitely a gift that obviously apparent in your congregation! On a slightly more serious note however, I’ve continued to be amazingly impressed by quality worship experience at the Christ the King. Many folks tend to think of worship as more of a performance to watch, something to only passively take part in. At CTK at least, worship is much much more: it’s a genuine expression of Christian community, with everyone actively participating and contributing their own unique spiritual gifts to the fellowship.

Outside of my time at CTK, I’ve spent some time this week reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, which is an amazing portrayal of Christian community. There’s one quote in the book that particularly struck me:

The first service that one owes to others in the fellowship consists of listening to them. Just as love of God begins with listening to his word, so the beginning of love for our brothers and sisters is learning to listen to them.

One reason I think worship at Christ the King is so great is it's conversational in tone; everyone seems to be very in tune with each other's needs. When we listen to each other, we tend to support one another. As we continue to explore different varieties of stewardship during Lent, it'll be a great opportunity to mutually listen and support each other in discovering new ways to use our spiritual gifts in the wider community and beyond! God's peace.