Our parts compose a more beautiful whole

As most of you know, I work at the Wesley Foundation.  What you may not know, is that we pray... a lot!  We have 2 morning prayer meetings a week, 2 evening services, a 36-hour prayer watch before our Wednesday night service, and interns have their own personal intercession times throughout the week as we prepare for discipleships ("dts"), meetings, and generally prepare our hearts for ministry.  Here's a picture of 7:30 Tuesday morning prayer!  It's a bit blurry-- but the beauty is that a bunch of people show up just to pray for UGA's campus, for Wesley's leadership and service, and specific needs that arise in our community.  It's AWESOME.

We also kicked off a new sermon series called IMPRINT last week.  The series is all about leaving an imprint on Athens and on UGA- and what kind of legacy each of us leaves here.  The most amazing, fantastic, out-of-this-world, blow-your-mind cool thing that is happening right now is that there are 8-10 other college ministries in Athens that are also doing the Imprint series!  On Sunday night, we all joined together and prayed for unity among our ministries, for breakthrough on our campus, and just for good things to happen here in Athens.

 It was incredible.

I was so blown away by the uniqueness each ministry brought to the table and to prayer-- for example, at Wesley, we're generally known to be the loud pray-ers who generally stand.  People from other ministries come to the Lord more quietly, are more ready to sit and pray, and sit in small groups to pray.  But as we worshiped together and prayed together for Athens and for UGA, our differences began to be stripped away and we began to simply be the Body of Christ- contending for our friends, classmates, sorority sisters and fraternity brothers, teammates, professors, and coworkers.  We prayed for those held in the strongholds of addiction, depression, negative self-image; those consumed by anger, fear, jealousy, and hostility.  Most of all, we just asked to love people well-- so that we can share our faith well.

As we prayed, I began to really understand a part of truly being the Body of Christ: it's understanding that our parts-- all of our parts-- are constantly shaping and composing a more beautiful whole.  Our ministries are set apart to be good at different things, to be gifted in certain areas, and to attract people who feel at home in that ministry.  The most beautiful thing about differing ministries is that no person is the same. So, as ministries beneath the banner of Christ, we serve a higher calling than our numbers or our lights & sound.  We serve Christ the best way that we know how- digging into the Word, relying on the Holy Spirit, trusting Christ's promises, and pressing into the heart of the Father.

And when we pray collectively for our campus, we know that our God hears us.  As we trust and believe big things for Athens, I know that our parts are composing a bigger, more beautiful whole than imaginable.  I'm so excited to see what's in store for Athens this year-- and what imprint each of us involved will leave.