Church?

I have started going to a Men’s Accountability/Support/Recovery group called Pure Desire. It has been a really good and really hard experience. I posted on twitter the other day that I have never had a small group experience like I did the other night at this group. Everyone in the group shared their personal histories/stories and it was one of the most powerful and grace-filled things I have ever experienced. And it made James 5:16 (“Therefore, confess your sins to one another…”) really make sense to me for maybe the first time ever…

In response to my tweet, a good friend sent me this that I wanted to pass on to you all:

Over the weekend I read some comments Frederick Buechner made about a support groups in his book, Telling Secrets. Here are some excerpts:

“In one sense they are strangers who know each other only bytheir first names and almost nothing else about each other. In another sense they are best friends who little by little come to know each other from the inside out instead of the other way round, which is the way we usually do it. They do not know each other’s biographies, but they know something about each other’s frailties, failures, fears. They know something too about each other’s strengths, hopes, gladness and about where they have found them. They do not give each other advice. They simply give each other stories about the good and the bad of what has happened to them over the years. . . . they tell each other their secrets, and as you listen to them, you hear among other things your own secrets on their lips. . . . They sometimes make serious slips. They sometimes make miraculous gains. They laugh a lot. Once in a while they cry. When the meeting is over, some of them embrace. Sometimes one of them will take special responsibility for another, agreeing to be available at any hour of the day or night if the need should arise. . . . I do not believe that such groups as these which I found my way to . . . are perfect . . . but I believe that the church has an enormous amount to learn from them. I also believe that what goes on in them is far closer to what Christ meant his church to be, and what it originally was, than much of what goes on in most churches I know. . . . These groups I speak of are more like what families at their best can be than most families are . . . They are more like families because in them something which is often extraordinarily like truth is spoken in something that is extraordinarily like love. . . . One of the luckiest things I ever did . . . one of God’s most precious gifts to me . . . was to discover that I was one of them and that there were countless others like me who were there when I needed them and by whom I also was needed. I have found more spiritual nourishment and strength and understanding among them than I have found anywhere else for a long time.”

This was exactly what I felt when I left that group.  It is a powerful thing.  I also believe that this is what the church can be and should be… someday, I hope.

Thoughts?