Six years, near enough, and neither of them has ever said the word meeting.
It started because of a hip. Doreen had the hip done and could not get out, and somebody had to take a bit of shopping round, and it turned into a cup of tea, and the cup of tea turned into a Tuesday.
Two o'clock. Doreen has never once been ready and always says she has lost the whole morning to something. There is a biscuit tin with a picture of a harbor on it that has never had the right biscuits in it since about the second year.
They talk about a great many things and about four of them matter.
And at the end, at about ten to four, always, one of them says something like: shall we then. And they pray. Out loud, both of them, and Doreen prays the way she talks and it goes on a bit and it is the best thing in that woman's week.
Six years of Tuesdays. That is somewhere over three hundred.
Here is what she found out about herself in the spring, and it has not left her.
Her granddaughter asked, in the way twenty year olds ask, what she does with her week. And she went through it. And she said, and I pop round to Doreen's on a Tuesday.
She heard herself say pop round.
And afterwards, doing the washing up, she thought: that is three hundred times we have prayed together and I have never once given it a name, and I would go red if anybody in that church called it a house group.
They spake often one to another, and it was written down
Sit down at that table for a minute, because there is a verse near the very end of the Old Testament that is about two people talking, and God does something with it that nobody in the verse knows about.
Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon His name.Malachi 3:16
Spake often one to another.
There is no building in that verse. There is no leader, no program, no name for what is happening, and no indication that any of them thought they were doing anything in particular. They were people who feared the Lord, talking to each other, often.
And look at what happens on the other side of it. The Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written.
Hear this at your own table. You have not been popping round, and the written word is what settles it. Scripture puts two people talking often under the direct attention of God and has it written down in a book, and the Holy Spirit is the one who has been in a kitchen at ten to four on more than three hundred Tuesdays.
Now let me name what went red on you in the spring, because it is worth naming and it is not vanity.
You have a picture in your head of what counts, and it has chairs in it, and probably a rota, and certainly a name. Anything without those is a personal arrangement, and personal arrangements are lovely and they are not the thing. The Holy Spirit did not give you that picture and nothing written in Scripture drew it.
Where did that picture come from? Not from the written word, which ends its Old Testament with two people talking and a book being written in heaven about it.
Hear this too, and let it settle at the sink. You are not doing a smaller version of anything, and Scripture is what says so. What is written attaches God's own hearkening to people speaking often one to another, and the Spirit of God has never once required a gathering to be convened before He would attend it.
And now something I want said clearly, because it matters on a site with this name.
None of this is a word against the building or the rota or the house group with a name. Doreen's church and yours are doing something real and it is not in competition with a Tuesday. A book of remembrance is not a rebuke to anybody who has chairs.
What is being handed back is one thing only: the right to call three hundred Tuesdays what they are.
The Lord hearkened. The Lord heard it. That is what has been happening at ten to four in a kitchen with a harbor tin on the side, and neither of you has ever known.
So this Tuesday, at ten to four, when one of you says shall we then, you say something before you pray.
Say it out loud, to Doreen, in that kitchen: we have been meeting for six years.
That is the whole thing. Six words, and they will land on that woman like something being straightened.
You are not renaming it to make it official and you are not going to tell anybody at church. You are saying out loud, once, in the room where it has been happening, what the written word already says it is: two people who fear the Lord, speaking often one to another, with God hearkening over the top of it and a book being written that neither of you has seen.
The Holy Spirit has been at that table for three hundred Tuesdays, and the only thing missing was somebody saying so.
And then pray, exactly as you always do, and let Doreen go on a bit.
Declare this over yourself
Say these at the sink before you go round. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and the Holy Spirit has been in that kitchen every Tuesday according to the written word, so the standing you speak from was never built out of what a thing is called. Whether this goes on another six years or ends when one of you cannot manage the walk, the outcome is His to decide, and it is never a measure of whether anybody named it.
- Tuesday, you are not a coffee and you never only were. Scripture says they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before Him, and nobody in that verse convened anything.
- Picture in my head that says it does not count without chairs and a rota, get out of this kitchen, in the name of Jesus. The written word ends with two people talking and heaven writing it down, and the Spirit of God has never required a gathering to be convened before He would attend it.
- Lord, You hearken and You hear it, and Your Spirit has been at that table for three hundred Tuesdays, exactly as it is written. I am saying out loud at ten to four that we have been meeting, and then we are praying the way we always do.
Malachi 3:16
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