Tonight we go to celebrate and hang out with our small group of the last year as they kick off a new season and we embark on a new season of our own. This has been one of the most unique groups that I have ever experienced. It is the only group I have seen where everybody that was invited to the first meeting came and stayed.
Most of us were new to Embrace last year when we first met. I think the longest anyone had been at the church was six months and we were all needing to make a meaningful connection with someone else. It was beautiful to watch trust begin to grow, conversations become more personal and life begin to happen between the meetings. There were no difficult people, there was growth and It was a textbook group that made Amy and I feel like we had won the lottery.
We also realized fairly early that there were several other potential leaders in the group and that it probably wouldn't be long before the group was ready to reproduce. It almost made more sense for us to hand things over to someone else within the group than to send them out instead of us. It was an opportunity for us as well to set an example of what it means to love people so much that you are willing to leave a close group that you love in order to provide the opportunity for someone else to experience the kind of belonging that you have found.
So tonight they start their new journey and we say goodbye to a group that will keep a piece of our heart. My hope is that leaving never becomes easy. Just like a family, relationships may change, but we will always belong to each other.
