Double Dipping

I've never been in a small group before. A place where we sit around and read then discuss God's Word. A place where people actually ask how you made out last week with your big work project you asked prayer for. A place where you can discuss (ahem, argue nicely) things that are grey. A place you can go without your husband if he is working or out of town one week and feel welcomed. I've never had this. Until now. And now I have two. Martin and I like to call it "Double Dipping."

Our friends Kellyanne and Bob have been building their dream home for about a thousand years and it's finally finished and all the years of talking about starting a small group has finally taken shape and every other Sunday night we meet at their dream house (which is secretly my dream house) and eat a huge meal, talk, laugh, and sit for a bit and discuss marriage and how God sees it. There are a mix of thirty somethings, forty somethings and fifty somethings. It's a perfect union of community and fellowship. The kids are usually upstairs or outside being loud and not having to worry about bothering us because we don't care.

But before this group started meeting, we started going to another small group. (Hence the double dipping.) Our other small group is a bit different than our dream house Bob and Kellyanne small group. It's full of twenty somethings and thirty somethings and tiny kids that scream and play in a basement full of every toy known in America, or at least that's the rumor. I love being around the young moms. It's fun to think I'll be a part someday (but just an old mom - fine with me). This group is my study group. I say that on two levels. 1. I study the moms. I mean really study them. I study how they react to their kiddos coming up to pee. I study how they respond to their husbands when they are more tired than I can comprehend right now (and trust me I stayed up late some nights watching LOST). I study how they act around each other. I'm kinda an outsider. Oh please. Don't feel sorry for me. I do it to myself. 2. They study the Bible. I'm not saying they are more spiritual than my dream house that Bob and Kellyanne live in group. That group is full of people in hardcore ministry in our church and it was designed as a place of refuge and safety. But this group, the young but not too young to call them the young married group likes to really dig in the Word of God and discuss stuff. We're reading the book Radical and well if you remember I went a bit crazy with that book so it's good to discuss some things in a group that doesn't want to sell all their things and move to Camden without even praying about it (me, that's me I am referencing). It's all about balance I'm learning.

So those are our small groups. We also have a Sunday School but we won't get into that. Let's just stick with the Sunday night small group at the dream house that Bob and Kellyanne are going to give to me and the Thursday night small group with the millions of tiny children. I'm enjoying double dipping. I think it builds our spiritual immune system. Get it? Double dipping spreads germs and when you put a spiritual spin on it, it's funny. No? Okay, well I tried.