I was recently reflecting back on the 8 years since I moved to Ann Arbor and how much my life has changed in that time. It seems like ancient history, but it wasn't very long ago that I was a firmly-rooted atheist with no interest in, and in fact a disdain for, the church and Jesus Christ. These reflections cause me to think past myself and wonder, what will it take to see more people's lives transformed in the same way that mine was? What will cause a person to turn from their old life and live for Jesus?

While everyone's testimony is different, there are some things that I've experienced that are a constant reminder of what the church is called to be and how God can work through the body of Christ to transform a person's life.

Contagious Community

I was quite apprehensive the first time I walked in to a small group meeting. I had no interest in going to church, but a friend had convinced me to try out this group, and since I had already met a few of the members, I decided to give it a shot. What struck me at first was that everyone seemed genuinely loving, accepting, and interested in my life. I'm pretty good at reading whether someone is genuine or not, and I could tell that this was the real thing. In a strange way, the care that I was shown actually made me feel a bit guilty, because I knew that in any other context I would have been criticizing these people for their faith and trying to convince them to deny God. Despite that, the small group cared for me, and I knew I wanted to come back for more.

Vision

If you're wondering why I was open to going to a small group in the first place, it's because I realized that I had nothing to live for, and I was looking for something. Strangely enough, what I was looking for was what I immediately observed in the lives of the small group members. As we studied Acts together, I noticed that many of the people around me were living for the same purpose that we read about in the early church. This was a group of people willing to give their lives for the gospel and to see the world around them transformed. Such an eternal purpose and vision spoke to me, and I realized that everything I had lived for before paled in comparison.

Spiritual Power

Before I had even gone to a small group meeting, something happened that changed the direction of my life. It wasn't an event or personal tragedy, just a moment sitting in my dorm room in Bursley. I mentioned before that I had nothing to live for, and it was at this moment that I somehow became aware of it, and felt more hopeless and lost than I had ever felt in my life. Looking back, I realize that the Holy Spirit was working in my life that day. From that point on I began searching, and that eventually led me to Jesus Christ. After I received Christ, I remember talking to people and hearing them say, "I remember praying for you before I met you," and I knew that it was not just a community of people that changed my life, but the power of God.

These reflections probably make that small group sound like it was filled with perfect, super-spiritual saints, and in my imperfect memory I'm sure I've idealized it, but it was in fact a family of normal people trying to follow Christ, with all of the struggles and difficulties that all of us face. However, this reminds me all the more that when we depend on God to make the church into a loving, visionary, transformational community, that He can do incredible things with imperfect people like us. I want to see more lives transformed, and I hope that many people will join in the movement to build up the church and reach the nations with the gospel.