kayfromhome

Have you ever walked through a door, entered a room and felt instantly at home?

There, in that place, the stressers of the day melt away.  Whatever happened up until the moment you stepped over that threshold fades to distant murmurs in the background.  A serene feeling of peace wrapping around you like an old blanket causing a satisfied sigh to slip past your barely parted lips… You smile.

Here is your happy place.  Here is where you belong.

People often join churches for the community it offers.  For both altruistic and selfish motives, people want to belong.  They desire to be someone important and to do something meaningful.  A church offers both a place and a purpose for that.

That is… If you’re doing things right.

It isn’t directly sinful to seek God for these relationships.  After all, that’s part of how and why we were created.  For relationship with Him and each other.  God’s creative plan aside, you know what draws people and keeps them? 

The Niche Factor.

A chance to find their niche.  A chance to play the puzzle piece.  A sense of possession, and a sincere buy in.  The opportunity to be a part of the grander scheme of whatever is operating on the larger scale, meta-narrative of the great organization of life.

Fascinating isn’t it?  What one would do for the ones that want them?

I myself, would pour out my life, devote all of my precious time and just about swear fealty to those who offered me a Niche.

Gang members do it.
Sports teams do it.
Even some families do it.

I wish more churches would do it.

Just a thought.

There were 5 other seniors from Hawaii that graduated from Northpoint. 4 of them returned home with me. 

Micah, the obvious leader, though he’d deny it to the end. Strong, tall and oddly charismatic for someone who only talks when and to whom he chooses.  Jade, his fierce and faithful, loving fiancé.  Shalen, with her deep soulful voice to match her deep and soulful heart and Kyle, whose arms and eyes are always open to those in need and those in pain.

Then there was me. Who gets carried away by passion, compassion and all of the other overflowing emotions.

The introvert, the extrovert, the vain, and the varsity.  The bookish, the snobbish, the cultured and the cultural.  The surfer, the painter, the writer, the singer, the stoic and the hysterical.  We’ve got every angle and base covered by way of person and personality.

I’m not saying that we’re best friends.  I am saying that we couldn’t make this transition without one another.  Or, at least I couldn’t without them. 

By right, we 5 should not be grouped together.  By nature, we would make an awful team.  But by God’s power, we are becoming each other’s Niche in a world hostile to who we are and what we are offering.

Ourselves.

Ourselves broken and poured out and covered in the blood of Jesus Christ.  That sounds gross to someone who doesn’t speak Bible, but trust me reader when I say it’s the most beautiful gross sounding thing you’ll ever hear in your whole life.

But that’s enough for tonight, friends.

Until next time.