February 5

Accountability day ... quick email with a number will be fine. Remember this is the toughest month of our year. With a big snow storm coming this weekend it is a great time to catch up.

Numbers 1-2

Numbers 2:1-2 The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: "The Israelites are to camp around the Tent of Meeting some distance from it, each man under his standard with the banners of his family."

Suppose you were asked to design a planned community, complete with houses, shops, schools, churches and hospitals. Would you want there to be a grid with streets crisscrossing like tic-tac-toe or, perhaps, streets ringing the inner city in concentric circles like a target? And what would you put in the center of the community? A park? City hall? The business district? In Stamford, we have a bank, a business, a library and McDonalds at the heart of our city. When God planned his community for the Israelites, he put the “church” smack-dab in the middle, with “houses” streaming out in every direction- north, south, east and west. Of course the tabernacle wasn’t exactly a “church” as we might think of a steepled church today. In fact, the earliest church wasn’t a church at all if what we have in mind is bricks and mortar. Unlike the temples of Solomon and later Herod, the first Christians did not have any building for the sole purpose of worship for over two centuries. They just went from house to house. Nothing fancy, No pulpit. No pews. No steeples. Just a gathering group of believers sitting around tables enjoying fellowship with each other and God.

So where do you put the church in the community when there is no church building? How about in the families that comprise the community? That way the church is not just in the middle of the community, but on every block. And where is God’s dwelling place when it is set within families themselves? Smack dad in the middle, of course. In godly families, worship is always at the center of everything a family does, whether work or play, mealtime or prayer time. When God is at the heart of a family, and family after family centers itself on God, an entire community can be wondrously transformed – as if God planned it that way.

What is the center of your life? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? I have never met a person who has placed God at the center of their life and said to me, “God ruined my life.” But I can fill Boyle Stadium with people who have put themselves at the center and made total messes of their lives. Put God at the center of your heart, you will not be disappointed.
Credit F. LaGard Smith for some of these thoughts