No matter how old you are, “grouping” with others can be awkward. Really awkward.  The fumbling through finding common ground with someone, the anxiety of knowing someone and actually being known, the tension between realistic and unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others…colliding…can all make for an awkward experience, and it’s hard work.  But it’s worth it…because there is something about finding a way to do life alongside someone else that makes life make more sense.

Acts 2:42-47

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.  They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.  And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

It almost sounds like the early church was the perfect little small group…until you read the rest of the New Testament and you learn their lives were as jacked up as our own.  There’s tons to unpack in this, but for today…the thing that strikes me most in this passage is the phrase, “All the believers were together and had everything in common.”  They weren’t all carbon copies of each other, they were all train wrecks that had found salvation in Jesus, hope in Jesus.  He was their common ground, and when Jesus is your common ground, that is all you need.

Their hope in Him is what compelled them to be genuine with each, vulnerable with each other, to eat together, grow together, worship together, to serve one another, to share their stuff, to pray together, to guard each other, to be there for each other day in and day out in the midst of persecution…to do life together…because when Jesus is your common ground, you learn the road everyone is really on, is ultimately the road of grace, the road of fumbling through following Jesus, the road home to who he made us to be in the first place.

I work with college students and we call that road, The Return.  The college age season is incredibly transformational in one’s life.  It’s complicated. It’s a mess. You may remember those years vividly.  You may want to forget them. Some of your decisions during that time may still haunt you. You may be up to your eyeballs in this season now.  But it’s when we rebel, it when we wander, it’s when we attempt to explore new found freedom and “discover” ourselves.  But I think it’s more about a recovery of who God created us to be on day one than a discovery.

The Return is our story of our journey back to Him. Not just mine, not just yours, but ours.  All of the mess, all of the struggles, all of the joys, and everything in between, together because we have common ground. We have Jesus. 

We ARE The Return.

It doesn’t matter what season of life you are in, doing life with others fumbling through following Jesus is worth it.  We need it.  We are called to it.  The Church, the body of believers, is not just something you fit into, it’s who you belong to.  And we are all somewhere along that road, whether we have stalled out, blew a tire, taken a wrong turn, or are stuck on the onramp…taking the risk of doing life alongside others fumbling through following Jesus, and getting in a group, is worth it.

So who are you doing life with?  Who are walking alongside? How have you seen God utilize those relationships to serve each other?  To draw you closer to Him?  To make Himself known to those far from Him?

Read over Acts 2:42-47 a few more times and list other common ground they probably had simply because of Jesus.  What are other characteristics that jump out at you? What could/would this look like today in your life?

Who in your life could you come alongside? What is in your way from taking that step?

Spend some time praying for God to cross some paths and open some doors, and for a front row seat to the life change that follows when we choose to group with others.