Ed Robb - Making Room: Sharing the Love of Christmas

ED ROBB

SHARING THE LOVE OF CHRISTMAS

MAKING ROOM

Sharing the Love of Christmas

Copyright 2020 Abingdon Press

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938769

ISBN-13: 978-1-7910-0637-2

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

Scripture quotations taken from the Complete Jewish Bible by David H. Stern. Copyright 1998. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Messianic Jewish Publishers, 6120 Day Long Lane, Clarksville, MD 21029. www.messianicjewish.net.

Scripture quotations marked MSG are taken from THE MESSAGE, copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

Scripture quotations marked NLT are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

To my parents
who loved me into faith

Perhaps your family, like mine, either read the book or watched the animated version of Dr. Seusss classic story How the Grinch Stole Christmas! every Christmas season. Our childrenand grandchildrenwere fascinated with the lonely, cantankerous, green-colored outcast, who lived on a frigid mountaintop far above the town of Whoville. Its an imaginative story, and for me, the most memorable part comes at the end. The Grinch, seated at a long table with the entire Whoville community, is given the honor of carving the roast beast. His smile reveals his genuine delight in being warmly welcomed into the midst of their community feast.

The storys imagery transports me back to a community table I delighted in visiting during my childhood: the fellowship hall of my grandparents church. Theirs was a small, rural Methodist church in Texas. The kind of small where everyone knew each other by name. The kind of small where visits and meals were immediately put into action when Mrs. Jones was admitted to the hospital. The kind of small where volunteers were quickly recruited to help Mr. Smith plow his field after his tractor broke down. The kind of small where, every five years, pastors were lovingly prayed over as they left for new assignments and where incoming pastors were warmly welcomed with, of course, a potluck dinner.

Sunday worship was an event we looked forward to all week long. Grandmother made sure we looked our very best before we piled into the car to head for church. Getting there early was the rule because it afforded us the time to connect with friends before the service began. And after the service, the entire church community headed to the fellowship hall. What great fun we had, racing up and down the hall between the tables with the friends we had made on our visits. While our grandparents got caught up on all the community news, we snagged enough doughnuts and cookies to power our sugar-energy reserves for an entire afternoon.

Food was never in short supply at that Methodist churchs fellowship hall. Potluck dinners were a regular event featuring culinary delights such as southern fried chicken, funeral potatoes, calico beans, fried okra, and blue-ribbon-winning brown-sugar-cinnamon apple pie. Also served up were healthy portions of love, laughter, and fellowship.

Looking back, the fellowship hall seemed to me to be twice as large as the churchs sanctuary. But thats not surprising really since it held the heart and spirit of Christian community within its walls.

I often think of my grandparents church as I read through the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles, because small churches like theirs captured many of the dynamics of the earliest Christian church, which was born through the giving of Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This is what Acts 2:42-47 tells us about the fellowship of believers in Jerusalem:

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

The word fellowship comes from the Greek koinonia, meaning community. Fellowship includes two important elements: deepening friendship and developing a common vision, goals, and priorities. In the first-century church, fellowship was mediated by meals, an important tradition of Jewish Christians. Meals would always begin with a blessing over bread, as a remembrance of Gods provision for the meal, and then breaking and sharing it. (Jesus understood and observed this practice and added additional meaning to the act of breaking bread at the Last Supper with his disciples. His words from MatthewTake and eat; this is my body [26:26] and This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins [26:28]expressed what he would provide with the breaking, death, and resurrection of his body.) After the breaking of the bread during those early church meals, the remainder of the time would be devoted to fellowship and encouraging one another in living the life God wants us to live.

This intimate, communal love for God and one another is the glue that held the early church together and is what I observed and experienced in the small-town and rural churches of my youth. But as our cities have grown and expanded into the masses of suburbia, I fear we are losing that glue. Some churches are growing larger and larger, offering many different worship times and venues. Worshipers must be in and out in an hour to make room for the next service, leaving little time for fellowship. Rare are the congregations where members know all the others by name.

The church I serve near Houston, Texas, The Woodlands United Methodist Church, has fourteen thousand members. Its a big church with thirteen ordained clergy and a large staff. So many people attend on any given Sunday that a worshiper can easily get lost or overwhelmed. More and more I have come to realize that it doesnt matter how many programs or how many square feet of space we have if we arent successful in getting members into small groups where they come to know one another and share a sense of community. In time, members are likely to become inactive, marginalized, and disillusioned.