The Family That Leads Together

Our Sunday night’s leaders meeting was about the best one we’ve ever had. As I’ve written about, I’ve been trying to think of more ways to get them involved before we actually start church services, and this week there were a few things that I honestly needed their help in. We’re starting a new series at our Bible study about love and dating, but I really didn’t know what would be a good title. So we talked about the title for a while, and then I asked them to help me think of some of the most common questions about the subject, as we’re going to deal with one every week. That was the easy part. Even after our meeting was officially over, they were still throwing out ideas. It really seems to help with the ownership sensation. 

Then we talked about our growing gender gap. They couldn’t hardly see how it was a problem at first. I mean, girls like hanging out with girls, and… so do guys. So not a big deal to them. But in a country currently facing a critical gender unbalance, with far more guys than girls, we ought to see some churches representing that. They all know that 80% of the attenders of Chinese churches are women. The problem is the ol’ slippery slope. The more women come, the more church is seen as a women’s activity, the more men aren’t interested. It seems the biggest problems come when the women take all the leadership positions. We ought to be able to leverage the numbers right now, though – as college students, I mean, having more girls than guys is really a selling point to new guys. Plus, our leaders meeting is still just about even. Half girls and half guys.  

After our study, we busted out the Christmas decorations and kicked it Martha-Stewart style for about an hour and a half. They really made the place look great. I think that they’re really proud of the building we’re in, and they take good care of it. Besides the obvious benefit of a decorated building and the ownership the leaders took, we got to spend even more time together as a Christian family. This is so hugely important. A transformation has really occurred over the last few months – when we started this group, we were a bunch of strangers trying to talk about something that was only a small part of their lives. Now there’s a special kind of closeness and familiarity in the group. No doubt this group will be attacked as hard as anything we do in the future. But when someone goes missing, they’ll be missed. 

Besides that, we almost finished our study on eternal security. Talked about our position in Christ and the invincibility of that position. I think “Jesus the lawyer” made a particular impression on them. We finished up working through some reasons that a Christian must not use their liberty to sin. What a great study! It makes you feel the awesome power and grace of a God who unconditionally forgives and the absolute depravity and wickedness of our own hearts who treat the grace we’ve received with such flippancy. As always, Jesus is the hero, and we’re the villains.