Do you want a guarantee that Jesus is going to show up someplace? He gives us that guarantee in Matthew 18 when He says “where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”
While the quote is taken from a passage about resolving a dispute, Jesus’ words are true in all sorts of contexts. This is an important thing to note, because all too often we can get a sense that being a Christian is an individual experience alone. It isn’t. It can’t be. Sure, Christians will have times to themselves, but being a Christian requires community. We need other people. As frustrating as other people can be, we still need them if we are going to call ourselves Christians. Just look at Baptism for proof – nobody gets to baptize themselves. You need other people to even enter into the kingdom of God, why would He change that up once you were in?
But community can be difficult, especially in our pandemic ridden world, especially in our overscheduled and overworked world. To meet the challenges of our age that keep us from community, University Lutheran is offering “Triads” this Fall to the whole congregation. Triads have largely been a student-only thing before, but this year we want to see triads grow in our non-student population as well.
What is a Triad? A triad is 3-5 people who gather together in-person, online, or via the phone once a week for 15-30 minutes to engage in three things: a Bible reading, discussion, and prayer. Each Triad session runs 6 weeks. After 6 weeks, you can choose to continue, switch Triads, or choose to take a break.
When is this going to be? Each Triad group will have a person who is a leader. This person is not so much a discussion leader (all of the discussion questions are provided by University Lutheran), but is a person who recruits and schedules meetings. We will ask you when your availability is and match you with other people. In terms of a start date, we want Triads to start around September 5th.
What if you’re saying, “I’d love to, but my schedule is so busy nobody else could do this with me.”? You might be right. But then again, you might not be. We have a lot of busy people in our congregation. They might be looking for a 15 minute moment with Jesus and some fellow believers as well. It’s worth a try to see if anyone can match your schedule.
You’ll have opportunities to note that you’re interested in Triads for the next couple of weeks. Please consider it and pray about it, and remember, when you gather with your Triad, Jesus has promised to be there with you.