gardens

Just this morning, I walked up to the alcove above the coffee shop, where our humble community gathers for worship every week to wheel barrows and spades strewn across the floor. The company who owns the building we gather in is preparing for a playground installation, complete with the fanfare of the local Hockey team coming to help and breakfast platters being ordered. I laughed as I sat my guitar down against a table. People would be heading up in the next ten minutes, so the only thing I could do was slide as many wheelbarrows against the wall as I could and then submit to the metaphor of worshipping among garden tools for a weekend.

A man I’d never met before entered our gathering today and told the story of how he’d moved to Nashville just the Friday before but hadn’t felt welcome anywhere like our house in a really long time. As we read the writings of Luke and chatted about what it meant to be sent, our new friend Mark told us about how God had sent him to us and he is now being sent back into the streets with people hungry for a glimmer of faith. My friends and I caught the corners of each others eyes as smiles rose up to meet him. We laughed at the stupid vastness of the goodness of God. He’s way better at teaching his word than we’ve ever been.