So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore by Wayne Jacobsen & Dave Coleman

Author:Wayne Jacobsen & Dave Coleman [JACOBSEN, WAYNE]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC026000
ISBN: 9781935170013
Publisher: Windblown Media
Published: 2008-09-02T04:00:00+00:00

9

A Box by Any Other Name . . .

“So you really think this John was one of the original disciples?” Ben asked, leaning over the couch.

“Who told you that?” I asked, turning from the window and looking back into the room.

Ben turned toward my wife, Laurie, who waved me off with a smile. “That’s what you used to think.”

“Now that just sounds a bit preposterous, doesn’t it?” Ben looked back at me with a smirk. We had led a home group together while I was at City Center. He sought me out after I was fired to start this house church. He was a good-natured tease and he didn’t need any further ammunition from me.

“I agree it does, but you would have had to have been there when I met him. It was a bit strange. Later I thought of Jesus telling Peter that he shouldn’t compare himself with John, even if he let him live until Jesus came again. I sort of put two and two together . . . ”

“And got seventeen,” Ben said, exploding in laughter as did others in the room. There were nearly twenty of us waiting for John to arrive. Some were sitting about the front room while others were busy in the kitchen or carrying dishes to the patio, where we were setting up our potluck. John called me three days earlier, told me he was going to be in town, and asked if he could visit our group.

“What do you think about him now?”

“To be honest, figuring that out has become far less important to me. Whoever he is, I’m convinced he knows the Father I want to know and follows the Jesus I want to follow. He has helped me live the things that have burned in my heart for years.” This group already knew about my conversations with John, since they had come up often in our times together. They were excited to finally meet him and I was a bit concerned they wouldn’t be as impressed with him as I was.

“But I think it’s better if we don’t bring all that up,” I pleaded. “He’s bringing some others with him and I don’t want to embarrass him.”

“Who’s he bringing?” asked Ben’s wife, Marsha. It was their home we were in.

“He didn’t say and I figured the more the merrier.”

The sound of a car door slamming drew my eyes back to the street. “He’s here,” I said. “And it looks like he has a young couple with him. They’re getting a baby out of the backseat.”

“And we don’t have any other kids here,” Marsha said with a bit of disappointment. “We should have let the kids come.” We had decided to get babysitters that evening and I had never thought to tell John.

Word of his arrival spread quickly and more people wandered into the front room. John waved to me through the window. I looked behind him and saw Diane and the man who had been with John when I met him in the mall.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.