What is This Place?

I visited a prayer gathering a couple of weeks ago and on of the songs we sang was the 16th Century Dutch Anabaptist hymn, "What is this Place?"  Despite my love of contemporary worship music, I have a deep love the older hymns as well.  There are not many other places, other than the Bible, that you can find such deep theological truths.  Worshiping with a common hymn unities a community of people in a triumphant outcry of the Spirit that transcends hundreds of years of Christendom.

As we sang, the words began to resonate with me; not only relating to the small community that I found myself that night, but small communities in general.  Of course, since my thoughts are often delving into Life Groups, I began to see how the words were just as true for our small community gatherings as well.  Listen to the words of the first couple of verses:        

What is this place where we are meeting? Only a house, the earth its floor.
Walls and a roof sheltering people, windows for light, an open door.
Yet it becomes a body that lives when we are gathered here, and know our God is near.

Are the places that our Life Groups meet only homes that someone has graciously offered for the simple purpose of having a place to gather?  A place to eat?   A roof over our heads?  Or is something more taking place as several members of the Body of Christ unite in mind and Spirit?  Do we sense a transformation, with the knowledge that God is in our midst because we've gathered for His purpose, and that alone?  

Jesus said in Matthew 18:20 that "where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them."  Let these words remind you that we are the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27)  As I read these words of Christ in Matthew, I cannot help but believe that He is not reminding us that He is there, watching over us or sitting close by in observance, but His presence transcends the physical.  What Jesus is reminding us of is that we are the Body of Christ, living and breathing until He returns to earth.  In a supernatural union, He flows not only among us, but within and through us.  This concept is nothing new, but has been an essential belief of the Church since Christ's Ascension into Heaven and the first group of believers began to meet.     

As the hymn states, our Life Groups become a Body; His Body.  And this happens when we gather together with the acknowledgement that everything we do is for the glory of Jesus Christ.  Our studies, videos and discussion pale in comparison to the transformation that takes place when we join together.

Meditate on these thought this week, and as you meet in your Life Groups, propose the question to one another, "What is this place where we are meeting?"