Community with a Side of Bacon

If you've ever read any portion of my blog, I'm sure you're familiar with how important I think community is to our lives physically, mentally and spiritually. If you haven't, go ahead and do that now... it's okay, we'll wait..... ( please close/reopen your browser for each post you read, trying to build my rep up with "pageviews"). While you're reading old posts, also please not my use of parenthetical sarcasm, as illustrated above. ANYWAY... back on topic, community is a HUGE factor in  my growth and development as a Christian and as a man. I strongly believe that if it were not for the impact of community, I wouldn't be able to write this blog, work at my company, graduated in college, or succeeded in any way. God calls us to live in community with one another, I absolutely can't stress the importance of community enough. The church I attend, has somewhere upwards of 65 small groups. Small groups are one way that we live in community with one another. We are a church made up of small groups. I love my small group, and it has stretched me in ways that I could never have imagined. However, I still felt like there was something missing within my Walk... and I couldn't figure out what that was.

God. Provides.

A few months ago, I found myself greatly disheartened, by the corporate business world, the spiritual darkness of my workplace, and the inability to influence my coworkers more than they were influencing me. This led to a conversation with a guy, who when I was 8 years old was the older, cooler college age guy that coached my soccer team, when I was 18 years old was my high school soccer team that ran us so hard in practice I sometimes wanted to kill him, and now that I'm 24 years old is one of my closest friends, and a spiritual mentor. He made me realize that if I wasn't willing to pray for the corporate business world, the workplace, my coworkers... than I didn't really care about those things as much as I wanted to believe I did. That conversation planted a seed in the garden of my mind ( Mr. Roger's reference). I needed to establish a group of people that could pray for Columbus area businesses. This group was going to be comprised of men, that were curious about God or actively seeking God. Men that worked in Columbus. Men that wanted to pray for their workplaces. It all came to fruition through the creation of a new small group called... Community with a Side of Bacon.

Community.Bacon.Men.

Three things that go hand in hand with each other (or hand to mouth in the case of Bacon). I love community, and I love bacon. SO, this new small group meets on Wednesday mornings at 6:45 am at a local diner. We can eat breakfast, with other men of like-mind and heart, discuss the workplace and the struggles we see there. It's a safe place for men to talk about anything and everything. Including, but not limited to: Pride, Greed, Lust, Failure, Anger, Ethics, and Workplace Witnessing. I felt called to start and lead this group, and I have a HUGE vision for what it may become. We will quickly bond as a brotherhood, a community of manly bacon lovers (Vegetarians need not apply... kidding of course... sort of). We'll meet on Wednesday mornings because it's the middle of the work week, it allows for things to come up from the beginning of the week, and things to pray about going into the end of the week. It also, make it an awesome day for me in respect to community. My three meals a day will be spent with people from the community of believers that I belong too. Men's breakfast, Men's Lunch, Small Group dinner. It's a refreshing and rejuvenating day throughout a sometimes stressful week. And...

It.Starts.Today.

This morning we met for the first time. Aside from myself, we had 6 men show up to pray together. We talked briefly about our jobs, where we come from, who we are, and what led us to join the group. We range from young guys in their first career or searching for a job to older guys that have been with their company for 22 years. It was such a blessing to hear a brief part of each man's story.. and I greatly look forward to learning more about them. If you would, pray with us, pray for us, pray that our prayers would be intentional. If you're a man, and you want to join us... get ahold of me. If you're a woman, and you're interested... get in touch with me, I'd love to see a women's counterpart to our group form. If you're just reading this blog because you needed a break from class/work/the kids/ or the Xbox... go ahead and pray for our businesses, for our small groups, for our community. Prayer can change the world.

Grace and Peace.... and bacon.

B