My Joyful Hallelujah!: Invitation to crap and the friday fav!!

I know I often talk about the girls' Bible study and the youth group, but something that has really blessed be this school year is our college group - The ROPE.

(The name -The ROPE - means Reaching Out to People Everywhere. We know it should be ROT-PE, but life's hard and ROT-PE doesn't really roll off the tongue. We would really like to change it to CONSUMED... but everything in the church that's printed says The ROPE so... there.)

This picture was posed!! Haha!!! I had to capture the moment,
so I made them pretend to pray! :)

Beautiful feet - ready to go, do and share...

The ROPE started because our church is literally a block from Troy University and there had NEVER been a college ministry here... so... we did something about it. It's funny because I graduated from college a year and 10 months ago and Jacob... well... Jacob hasn't graduated yet. But... when you feel the nudge to do something, you have to do it, no matter how inadequate you feel.

Last year, we had a consistent 10-12 people who came each weekend to the ROPE. It was a good group. We grew a lot from it, but I felt that there wasn't CLOSENESS, HONESTY, TRANSPARENCY, etc. in the group. I knew that's what our group was to be founded on... so feeling the nudge (once again), that's what we did this year.

The first week, I formally invited them all into my crap! haha! I know I could have said it more eloquently, but that's not me. I invited them to know my struggles, fears, joys, insecurities, and I wanted to be invited into all their crap. We changed the chairs from rows to a circle. Jacob was willing to change the format of the night from a full message to discussion. It is good.

Wednesday night, there was transparency and a sense of community that we all long for. Struggles and fears were shared. Encouragement was given. Blessings were received. It was a night of worship. So good. It was a feeling of belonging... what a joy for all of us!!!

We are studying Philippians. We are being called to boldness, to joy, to surrender. We can do it... together. I'm so pumped for this group. This year. This movement.