StepUp to Life

Since I started the journey of blogging, I must confess that I am both exhausted and excited.

Exhausted because I am still feeling my way through understanding what it takes to be a readable blogger. I thought to be a blogger one needs to write consistently. Then I was cautioned by another voice that asks what am I going to write about. Then I was encouraged by another thought not to worry, shareable things are happening around me, with me and inside of me. Actually, I am an interesting person to converse with.

Today, Sunday is the day that we attend fellowship meeting. My family likes to start the week attending a meeting like this. There are many homes in almost every community in many places in the world who meet like this.  We are just Christians. We meet in a home. We are non-denominational, so we don’t have a name and of course we meeting in a sanctified home.

A small flock of friends meet in a home every Sunday morning at 10:30. This is our church. The format is simple and gracious. We are like a family, after all, we are gathering in the elder’s home. He greets us at the door with a big smile. Then we quietly enter a room, usually the living room, with seats arranged in a circle with the emblems in the middle.

There was one unexpected mishap which I almost forgot. The days are warming up nicely but there is still a lot of solid compact ice on the side streets of residential communities in Calgary. I was thrilled to feel the warmth of the sun on my face. No sooner did I make two steps and I slipped flat on my back.  It happened so fast, I almost forgot where I was. Getting back on my feet was pretty challenging too. It seems I was trying to walk rather than skate on a sheet of ‘black ice’, located just at the entrance to the house that we congregate for service.

Meetings start promptly and usually lasts one hour give and take some minutes for some after meeting chit-chat. Today the chit-chat was longer than usual because the elder’s wife was absent due to having just undergone back surgery. We all, therefore, wanted to pay her a visit and express speedy recovery.

The weekly format of the meeting never change. The elder leads the meeting with a hymn from our special hymn books. Then we each pray; then sing another hymn. After this, each person is invited to share a thought usually based on each person’s private study of the bible. Usually, everyone participates except the small children. Before we take the bread and wine, the emblems of the flesh and blood of Christ, someone prays and sing a hymn to close.

We all then greet and go to our respective homes, feeling spiritually refreshed and happy.  One after meeting routine is to quietly try to recall all the thoughts shared which may end in a discussion. We take our fellowship meetings seriously and our friends are important to us.

Thank you for reading my blog. Feel free to comment or ask questions.