now comes the hard part

Have you ever heard of a “silent rave”? Someone starts a Facebook group and invites other people to join him/her at an appointed place at an appointed time. To the innocent bystander it looks very odd. As many as a couple thousand young people converge for no apparent reason on a public space. There might be a countdown, and then they all put in their earbuds, turn on their mp3 players and start dancing. The problem is that everyone is dancing to whatever music s/he chooses, so there’s no common beat. And there’s no loudspeakers, no thumping bass or flashing lights. People step on each others’ toes a lot because everyone’s listening to different song. And it’s not really “silent” because there’s a lot of apologizing and laughing going on.

I heard a radio news reporter giving an account of a silent rave. She commented that it seemed that people at the rave were somewhat isolated, even though they were all in the same space. But then after she left the rave she started getting a lot of greetings on her Facebook account, people who wanted to get to know her, who had been at the silent rave and were using that common experience as a way of expanding their social network. So there was the initial happening that may have seemed a little strange and awkward, and then the real networking began afterward.

As I was driving to the second meeting with Peter Kumar a phrase kept coming to my mind: “Now comes the hard part.” Peter is obviously someone who loves God and is gifted by God in a way that draws a lot of people. His teaching and prayer provided a lot of encouragement and motivation for people to explore serving God in ways they hadn’t considered before. That wasn’t true for everyone. I talked to some people who felt that what Peter said didn’t resonate with them at all and they just felt awkward about it all. But for others the meetings caused a stirring, an awakening for more of God in their lives. That’s the easy part, the part that’s attractive and exciting.

Now comes the hard part. What are we going to do with this? I’m not talking about just those that felt touched in some way. I’m talking about all of us. Our vision is to become like Jesus together. Our relationship with God is personal but it’s not private. We should be speaking truth into each others’ lives. And that takes time and diligence. Growth groups are where this should happen.

One of the guys in my men’s group emailed me to ask if we could talk about what Peter had prayed over him. That’s exactly what should be happening. If Peter said something that resonated with you, share it and get feedback on it and have people pray with you about what God wants you to do. If you went and felt awkward, then share that too because that can also be a way of exploring what God is doing in your life. Even if you avoided the meeting, if you share about why you did it can be a way for people to speak truth into your life.

“The journey is the destination.” Don’t worry if you don’t have the right answers or aren’t doing the right thing or don’t even know what the right thing to do is. Engage in the process. And don’t assume that you have the right answers when someone’s asking questions or sharing experiences. Seek God together. And trust that God will honor that process: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13