“Shani, you need to réspondez s’il vous plaît,” my mother told me when I was in fifth grade. I am literally laughing out loud as I start writing this assignment, with this memory at the forefront of my mind. Let’s be clear: This was the only French I ever heard my dear mother say aloud. She had an over-the-top way of teaching things — so I could retain the lesson, I suppose.
She was referring to my first party invitation that had an RSVP attached, and my mother was adamant that I respond by the requested date if I planned to attend. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I did not reply “yes,” and I don’t remember an occasion when I didn’t respond at all.
I believe that gathering helps people feel connected to something bigger than ourselves.
I love to gather. I love being in the community. If you are having an event, and you invite me, chances are I am there — and if I am not, I have a good reason. Right before the pandemic, in December 2019, I made the conscious decision to have Friday lunch dates with ministry colleagues I was just getting to know, along with some old friends. Due to work commitments and travel, by the time the world shut down, I was only able to schedule four meetings.
I met a colleague for lunch on the second Friday in January 2020. We had the same friends and even sat next to each other when we were given tickets to a U2 concert two years prior, but we had never spoken. I believe it was a Holy Spirit moment when Jen became my first lunch date. We bonded over being only children, growing up in a small town and not being pastors. When she asked how I was doing, it was as if someone were asking me this for the first time, because I unloaded all of my mama-bear issues about my kid having a breakdown 15 days before Christmas. Fifteen days before Christmas, I had signed the permission to have my middle child cared for at a children’s psychiatric ward for three days. With Jen I unloaded all my fears and concerns, even some joys. And Jen held the space. She kept the tension, and she loved me as a neighbor. That feeling of community is why we gather.
Jesus’ promise to be present when two or three are gathered is something I deeply believe and live by. I expect a supernatural encounter with the Divine and with people at the same time. This expectation motivates my saying yes. I believe in the small “God winks” that occur when you learn something new about others, when you share a common interest and when you learn something new about yourself. When I started my writing career, I went to a conference in Charlotte, North Carolina. More than 600 women had gathered to learn how they can write and speak about Jesus. Even for an extrovert like myself, it was overwhelming. The welcome dinner was held at a hotel banquet hall, where I quickly scanned the room and made a beeline to the first table I could find that was empty. Moments later the table began to fill up, and I was seated next to a fellow writer named Kim. Right before she had walked downstairs from her hotel room, she prayed she would meet someone who had lost a child. She met me. Gathering often happens by the power of the Holy Spirit.
That feeling of community is why we gather.
If the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, with all our mind and with all our soul, and the second is to love our neighbor as ourselves, then we must stay in community with one another. The whole intent is to learn and grow together. Love is a verb. It is an action. In her bestselling 2018 book The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, Priya Parker explores how important it is that people experience a sense of belonging.
I believe that gathering helps people feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. Belonging creates purpose, accountability and just an innate desire to create something beautiful and holy.
For this reason, I choose to show up to the installation service, the birthday celebration, the conference, the hospital bedside or even the funeral. I know that when two or three are gathered, Jesus is there, and something worth telling always comes from an encounter with Jesus.
