A Kanye West song titled “Closed on Sunday” came to my mind this morning, let me share a few lines of the song with you:
Closed on Sunday, you’re my Chick-fil-A
Closed on Sunday, you my Chick-fil-A
Hold the selfies, put the ‘Gram away
Get your family, y’all hold hands and pray
There is something powerful about community, about family, I think that was what he wanted to capture in that song. Chick-fil-A Inc. is a highly successful American fast-food restaurant that is popularly known for its chicken sandwiches and for being closed on Sundays. One of its reasons is to allow their team members to rest and enjoy time with family and friends before a new week begins. There is also something powerful about taking a break from our fast-paced modern world to connect with friends and family. For me, I find that connection with my church family, every Sunday we gather to pray, worship, and study the scriptures together, it is a time to fan the flames on that connection once again.
Today, my church family celebrated our eleventh anniversary. Eleven years of telling people about the gospel of Christ, seeing healings and miracles, eleven years of growth with over 24 branches and still counting, and eleven years of sharing the pain and joys of life that come with living on this planet called Earth. The service today was filled with a lot of celebration yet a very sober reflection of the vision of why this all started in the first place. It is extremely important to always go back to the drawing board.
Another activity that took place in the church today was something we call Meet And Pray, the cell fellowship arm of the local church that encourages meetings in smaller units to pray, play, and connect on different works of life. Since our services usually last for an hour thirty minutes, a maximum of two hours, we have discovered that to foster deeper connection we must have something beyond the regular church services that bring us together. I think this is so vital because it could be very easy to get lost in a Mega Church if you know what I mean.
We were created for connection. John Donne, a former dean of the St Paul’s Cathedral in a 17th-century sermon said it well: “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as any manner of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.” Yes, the popular idiom “no man is an island” came from there, (Now you know, smiles).
In other words, we are all connected and involved in each other lives. It is not about the particular day of the week either Sunday or Wednesday, the most important thing is that we stay connected in our community.
#MMBA5
