Week five bloggity blog

This week we discussed corporate disciplines.  Present were John, Ben, Mat, Joanna,and myself.

Joanna spoke about her frustrations towards churches and their attempts to make others conform to their views of worship.  She also spoke of her commitment to speak less saying she wanted to stop putting her foot in her mouth. :) Ben also spoke of his commitment to 10 minutes of solitude daily.  He only managed twice but found it very beneficial both times.

We then prayed for Joanna as she needed to prepare to give her testimony in chapel, and what a testimony it was!  God bless you Jo!  :)

We continued discussing worship, focusing on tongues.  I mention that I've always seen speaking in tongues as phony because of seeing people of questionable character "practice" this discipline in church as a child.  I have also always been confused by the repetition people use when speaking in tongues.  Mat said that sometimes God only gives you one syllable to start with and then expands your "tongues" vocabulary over time.

We then discussed our classes and how much we appreciated our professors who allowed the class to give their own opinions as opposed to foisting their personal opinions on us.

Next, we discussed confession.  John said that confession is the first step to healing and a person's husband/wife should know everything about them.  I strongly disagreed saying that some things were between a person and God and if God has forgiven them why does anyone else need to know?   Ben put forth that it depended on whether the confession would harm or foster the relationship.  We ended in group prayer.

I feel that our group is growing as a whole in that we can easily pray together, which is a very intimate thing, and because we are very open with each other.  Personally, I feel that I am growing spiritually, not because I'm better at practicing Disciplines, but because I'm learning so much about God/Jesus and I love/appreciate them more each day.