Community

This is post 2 of my testimony. Post 1 can be found here.

So I left you last in our home on Sunday mornings.

Not only did we have church in our home, we also met with a group of believers about once or twice a year. We called them "Gatherings".

I don't know the details on when these gatherings came about, who started them, or even how we all got to know each other (it must have been the Lord). I just know for as long as I can remember, I looked forward to these because it was a whole weekend of getting to play with cabbage patch dolls, trade stickers, play wall-ball and hide-and-go-seek (in the dark, of course) with some AWESOME kids.

You might be wondering what this has to do with my faith. Well, while we children were having a blast, our parents were also having a blast talking about Jesus. And we children knew that. We knew who was the reason for us getting to see each other. And that person was Jesus.

I don't think there was ever an agenda when they met. Everyone would just come into town on a Friday night and stay until after lunch on Sunday. Now that I'm older, I kind of wish I had sat in on those talks; but I don't regret knowing that my parents were wanting community and going after it.

Gatherings eventually faded as people got older and lives changed. My parents started to see that this yearn for more community was of heaven. They began asking questions and praying for the next step. This was the beginning of our journey with Westgate. I remember having one of our many family meetings when I was in seventh grade about starting to search for a church community. We decided that we would go about our lives and the next person to ask any of us to go to church with them would be where we would go. And then we prayed over this. We called it "laying out a fleece". (reference to Gideon)

It took a whole year before we were asked to go to Westgate. Remembering our prayer, we realized this was where God wanted the Baugh family.

Westgate has such a special place in my heart just as our home bible studies do. There I discovered the awesomeness of a youth group- how teens of all ages can know the love of the Father just as our parents do and worship Him together. I learned how to cherish friendship with another sister in Christ. I realized that there are others who are in need of what I have, and I have the ability to give it to them. And I grew a little deeper into the heart of God.

Because of Westgate, I got to experience the wonder that is IMPACT. Impact is a Christian youth summer camp held at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN. Hundreds of teenagers from church youth groups attend this week long extravaganza. There are worship session, break out classes, amazing speakers, and nighttime devos.

It was here that I decided to be baptized... and that is another post in and of itself...

Tune in next time. :)