encourage one another

The sun was shining warmly through the giant redwoods, rays penetrating the towering beauty. This last weekend we had a retreat focusing on how to encourage one another within community - throughout the weekend each one us would share a bit about where we're at, what we're wrestling with and everyone would surround us lay their hands on us a beseech God on our behalf. There were tears, and laughs especially as we gave a holy kiss to everyone after they had been prayed over.

We also looked at our personalities through a couple of personality "tests", which some were fine with doing others, not so into it. In the end I believe it was useful to see what different dispositions exist within the community. Kristen shared one of the more memorable comments as she described how God can take our personalities and mold them preventing them from developing into what might be a natural development but not necessarily a healthy one. I reflected on that yesterday as I was riding my bike and tried to imagine what my personality would be like had God not grabbed hold of my heart and began shaping it. Praise God for that -

Now one of the most telling activities we did was playing kickball at the park - a very insightful, fun time. If you want to see personalities come out and have the opportunity for encouraging one another - kickball. ;-)