A home and a light

This past Sunday evening we enjoyed our first time together in what we have determined to be our new gathering space.  On Sunday evenings and select other opportunities Common Table will call the Cascade "Peoples Center" home.  Sunday we were welcomed by Josh, the manager of the People's Center, with open arms and lots of Theo chocolate.  He was moved by the evening worship time and he shared afterwards that we were just what they were needing there to bring light and life to the center and the neighborhood.  That statement has had me thinking these past few days.  I can't underestimate how important these easily overlooked words actually are to our time at the center.  These words, although meant as sincere eagerness to have us there, hold a profound and deeper challenge for us.  Our task is indeed to bring light and life to wherever we find ourselves.  This is true of us individually, but can be so much more powerful as a community seeking to more faithfully live and love like Jesus.  So here is the challenge ... How will we in fact be light and life here?  I need us, all of us, each one who passes through the doors on a Sunday evening, to be diligently asking that question.  This is not a consumer community because ours is not a consumer faith.  So lets not fall into the trap of "using" the People's Center.  May we instead ask how God may use us within and around the space we've been given, for as long as we've been given it.  Our time there may be short as we continue to seek a permanent home, lets make the most of it.  As you walk past the park, as you drive into the neighborhood, as you come up the gravel path ... don't merely focus on the gathering at hand.  Look beyond, ask for insight, listen to the whisper, and be ready to share with us and challenge us with what God is setting before us.  Life can certainly take place inside the building within the context of our gatherings, but light is going to be a bigger challenge.  We are dead center in the middle of the city.  What greater place to bring light to than that?