I am privileged to be the Spiritual Director for an Emmaus Team. I have spent several Saturdays with this amazing group of men (and a few women) communing, sharing prepared talks and attending to many details to plan for this fall’s Emmaus Walk on the second weekend in September. We are hosting 12-16 men taking them through a short course on the Christian faith in the form of a three-day retreat.
The Emmaus Walk takes its name from the story in Luke 24 where two disciples walk unaware with Jesus. As they approach their village, the road diverges and Jesus is about to go on, but the disciples invite him to dinner. Jesus accepts their invitation and takes the road with them to their house. It is only at supper when Jesus breaks the bread that they realize HE is the risen Christ and their lives are forever changed.
FUMC Plano members Preston Spigener, Tim Hopson and Greg Blakey will all be attending our Emmaus Walk retreat. I ask that you pray for them, for member Joel Allard and I who are on the team, and for the team itself. Pray that our eyes and hearts will open wide for this experience.
This Sunday, I will be preaching from James 1:17-27 which does not talk about a road diverging but does talk about two ways of living our lives (see more with the Connecting Conversations background and questions for your small group/class here). The writer talks about one set of actions more generally connected to "the world," and another set of actions connected to the "royal law" of love. You can probably guess which set of actions I ascribe as "new actions" to conclude our "New Thing" series. More and new people are finding their way back to live worship and loving the experience together. The choirs, the band, the coffee and fellowship, and even the sermon!
I hope to see more of your roads diverge to worship with Christ this Sunday.
