PWGflow.

The summer of 2014 was hard. I was fired from my 11 year post at our church as they pursued different directions in student ministry. It was painful and challenging. Lea, Trey, Grannie and I entered unfamiliar territory. Where would we go to church? When you are employed vocationally at a church, where you're going to church is already decided. Upon leaving our church family we were faced with a vulnerable intersection. Beginning to visit churches is humbling. And adventurous. One Sunday as we ventured to the church that we had decided to attend on the particular day, we literally passed 20 churches on the way. I half jokingly said that we could attend a different church every Sunday and not run out for a long time and create a coffee table book about our church visiting.

It was an intimate time with my family. While we were all grieving the wounds of my firing, God was tenderly caring for us. Not knowing what the future would hold, we talked and prayed about attending 4 or 5 churches for various reasons. We would attend a particular church on a Sunday and then would eat lunch together and talk about what the experience was like for us. It is very holy for me to remember those lunches this morning. It was a tender and forming time.

One Sunday we attended Old North Abbey, an Anglican Church gathering that met in North Knoxville. Divine intersection. The way they honored Jesus. The way they welcomed the Spirit. The way they rang the bell to call us to attention. The way they sang through the morning liturgy. The way they honored the Word of God, literally holding it high. On that morning, I heard Father Aaron speak these words for the first time. Participating with God for the life of the world. Yes. My heart burned. Be enveloped by this staggering, glorious declaration. In Christ, you and I are welcomed to participate WITH GOD for the life of the world. We are not stuck gazing at our own pathetic misery or entertainments. We are drawn up out of a pit of sinful, hellish destruction into a glorious partnership with the living God. God partners with us cleansed murderers and adulterers to love the lost and longing world. I am undone. How can this be? Me and you and God together. YYYYYYYEEEEEEESSSSSS!!!!!!!! This is our purpose. Bless God and participate with Him for the life of the world. Love God. Love others. It seethes in and out of us by divine calling.

This is what I believe the apostle Peter is living out of as he begins to write to the Scattered Chosen Sojourners. He named the name of Christ. He then denied Him three times with gusto. Then Jesus died to forgive those very denials, AND OURS, and rose again to welcome us into a glory gushing partnership with Him. Upon His resurrection, Jesus walked with Peter one morning after breakfast and invested relational forgiveness into His friend. "Do you love Me?" "Yes, you know I do." "Then feed My sheep." Feed My sheep. Participate with Me for the life of the world. Absolutely incredible. From thrice denial to digging into divine partnership. Only God can do this. Only God can create this plot.

And the plot thickens today with you and me. Can you hear the call? PWGflow. Participate with God for the life of the world! You. Me. And Trinity. Literally in the first two verses of Peter's first letter he declares it. The foreknowledge of God. Sanctification of the Holy Spirit. Obedience to Jesus Christ. Father, Son and Spirit calling us up into this divine participation and partnership.

I can't get over this. God and we are partners.

There's more.