Meetings, Conferences, and Doing Life Together

How many people have you met with over the course of the past week? 

If you think about the work meetings (in-person or online), the gatherings with friends, the times at church, the FaceTimes or phone calls, how many people have you connected with? 

Whether it’s a coffee or a video team meeting, these are the people you are doing life together with. As a leader in TeachBeyond, I’m looking forward to late September and early October because it will be filled with meetings. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t love meetings for meetings sake; but I love the opportunities God gives us to do life together when we gather in any way possible. 

When I think about doing life together, I’m drawn to Paul’s words to his friends in Philippi: 

³I thank my God every time I remember you. ⁴In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy ⁵because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, ⁶being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. ⁷It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart...” (Phil 1:3-7) 

We inevitably do life together with those who are nearest to us. 

The people next to you in your apartment, the person you meet in the market. Someone who helps you with language, those you teach, those you work with, your spouse or family members. 

Doing life together starts and ends with people. 

For this reason, I’m blessed to connect with leaders in Latin America prior to the Latin America Regional Conference, to meet hundreds of members at the conference, and then to meet with our Cabinet following to conference. Why these meetings, conferences, and conversations? So that we can partner together in the gospel. To see ourselves and those we lead and serve be transformed by Jesus. 

This is why we will gather in Gramado, Brazil October 1-5. Yes, we will learn together, we will eat together, we will worship together, pray together and have professional development. But in doing life together something wonderful and powerful will happen; we will grow into one another’s hearts (Phil 1:70).  

As you think again about the people you have met with over the course of the past week, who is in your heart? What are you praying for him or her? 

We long for our relationships to be all that God intends. 

Please join me in praying for the hundreds of meetings taking place daily in TeachBeyond. Meetings with students, teachers, parents, churches, friends, and family. May each one of us accomplish all that God has for us in every encounter this week, in his strength and for his glory.