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[00:00:00] John: So David, last time we were together we were reflecting on this incredible encounter that Peter and John were having with this very high powered religious San Hedron and how they really. Handled themselves superbly well, to the extent that the law, the Sanhedrin recognized that they were unlearned, unschooled men that they saw understood whatever that fully means that they had been with Jesus. 

[00:01:14] And we, we sort of reflected a little bit on that and But the problem these guys have had, the San Hedron had is, is that that the man who is healed, who is over 40 years old, is standing right in front of them. They can't really refute this miracle, so they're sort of putting pressure on the apostles to back off to dial their rhetoric down and their behavior down. 

[00:01:36] And so we left it. Were literally after fir further threats, they let them go. And Peter and John. Head back to the community of Faith and we're, we're kind of, sort of gonna pick that little, Leaving the Sanha and going back to the community of faith moment in this incredible moment of engagement, community and prayer that is, is definitely worth a bit of a reflection. 

[00:01:59] David: Totally. Totally. And, and so what we'll do is I'll just, I'm gonna read the text right now and then let's jump into exploring this. So this is from Acts chapter four and verse 23. And, and it literally picks us up exactly where, where you've described us leaving off. It says, After they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them when they heard it. 

[00:02:26] They raised their voices together to God and said, Sovereign Lord who made the heaven and the earth, the sea and everything in them. It is you who said by the Holy Spirit through our ancestor, David, your servant. Why did the Gentiles rage and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the Earth took their stand and the rulers have gathered together against the Lord and against his Messiah. 

[00:02:52] For in this city. In fact, both herd and POEs pilot and the Gentiles and the people of Israel gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. And now Lord, look at their threats and grant your servants to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal. 

[00:03:17] And signs and wonders have performed the name of your holy servant. Jesus, when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness. 

[00:03:35] John: Wow. Come on. 

[00:03:36] David: The 
 

[00:03:36] John: What a prayer meeting. Come on 

[00:03:39] David: Absolutely, 

[00:03:40] John: a prayer meeting. All work, 

[00:03:42] David: Yeah. Quite, quite something in that text, isn't it? 

[00:03:46] There's, there's so many little moments. Even just as you read it through, you kind of feel the, the, the, the, the intensity of that passage. I, I, I love it. 

[00:03:55] John: absolutely. I, I mean the, the first thing it struck me as I was listening to you again, and, and I just love the immediate contrast of it, is that Peter and John leave this. Courtroom community gathering, and the first thing they do, they went back to their own people. They went back to, to the, clearly the implication is the church, the community of faith, and reported all that the chief priests and elder did. 

[00:04:22] I love that. I love the. . I love the sense of intentionality that they go from one community, as it were, which is profoundly against them and sought to sort of, disempower them in a sense, 

[00:04:36] David: Yes. 
 

[00:04:36] John: and then they immediately go to this community of faith. To both encourage them and be encouraged. This sense of, of affirmation in this. 

[00:04:46] And and, and I just, I just love that idea. And, and I don't know if you spotted this day, but I thought there was a lovely little uh, you know, when talks about going to their own people, it's that word idiocy and it's that, 

[00:04:57] David: I did. 

[00:04:57] John: and, Yeah. Did you spot that? I, I thought that was a cool little spot where, when, when the sort of the, the Sanh room referred to them as ordinary and unschooled and then you have this lovely connection, but they saw that they'd been with Jesus. 

[00:05:12] Here's now Peter and James going back to these ordinary people having left this high powered theological sort of inquisition. And they go back to these, so, Ordinary people, and it's in the context of these ordinary people that now we get a dynamic supernatural demonstration again. And I just love the play on that. 

[00:05:32] I just, I, I thought it's, it's a little bit less obvious in English, but I thought in the Greek tax, there's a lovely little connection there that seems to be leaning into something quite powerful.  

[00:05:42] David: I mean, if you think back to the last two episodes, we talked a little bit about the power dynamic that's going on in this text. Who's, And so if you just, if you literally just, raise your elevation to two, 3000 feet above all of the texts we've talked about the last few episodes, and then now today, it's beautiful that you've got the power structures of, of the formal. 

[00:06:08] The formal sources of power, the rulers, the, the government of that city and that time, And I think it's worth always remembering that, that the religious leadership was more than just the church council, as we might think of it. They were hugely influential in city life, in, in day to day life. 

[00:06:26] So you've got the power structure saying, No, we are in charge. We don't like this rebellious new group. They're causing issues. And they. This word idio is ordinary, and then these ordinary people return to. Ordinary folks I mean that, like you say, it's exactly what it's saying in chapter four. They return to the ordinary. 

[00:06:47] And what happens there is that the place is shaken. And and and they are, they are shook as a result of this. And so you get this little subtlety in what you've said there. The, the question of where does the Holy Spirit find? Place to work. Where does the Holy Spirit reside? Not in the standard structures of power, right, But, but in the places where there is an open heart to the work of the Holy Spirit and as is a common refrain, remember a reading act, it's written by, by our friends, the doctor , Luke, and what did we find at the start with. 

[00:07:28] The spirit of the Lord is the thing. So we're seeing the spirit just work so beautifully, consistently, like that God is completely ignorant towards our structures of power and will happily, will happily work in a ruler with an open heart, as happy as he will to a young lady. Who's in a slightly awkward social situation to a group of fishermen who have decided they're gonna change the world. 

[00:07:53] And I just that's hanging a lot on one use of the word ordinary, but . But, but I think it's there in the story 

[00:08:01] John: I do, I, I, I do. I I think that's very, I think, Luke is extremely clever in, in some, in the way he sort of connects certain ideas together, and I think that's one of them. And, and I love the reinforcement of community there. I think for, for some of our listeners, there is a beautiful. 

[00:08:22] Repeat theme throughout the book of Acts of God doing something in community, not just with the individual. And of course we totally believe he can do stuff in and through and for the individual of course we do, but, but there is this constant repeat of the importance of community, the importance of the gathering. 

[00:08:41] and God doing something there. And we, we've already reflected on that in X two. When the Holy Spirit comes and, and, and what, what happens there. But it's funny you see a little repeat of this with Peter in X 12 when Peter gets out of prison, miraculously delivered by the. Who, who gets him outta prison. 

[00:09:01] The first place Peter goes is to the House of Mary, and there's a prayer meeting happening there, and you get this incredible, okay, first thing he does, he goes to the community of fifth. And then there's a lovely repeat of that idea in sort of X 14 where, when, and when Paul. Saul and Barnabus go on their first masonry journey. 

[00:09:24] When they finish that masonry journey, they return to the church at Antioch and they return to that sense of community. And then there's a gorgeous one for me, NX 16, where when Paul and Silas get outta prison, right at the end of that, before leaving Philippi, they go to the house of Lydia. See the brothers literally see the brothers to their face and then, and then they encourage them and they leave. 

[00:09:46] So you get this beautiful repeat idea that, that these believers aren't just operating in some sort of individualistic maverick behavior. They aren't just going off on their own. Here's Peter and John. After having faced the San Hadron, what did they do back to the community? 

[00:10:02] David: Yeah. 
 

[00:10:03] John: Peter gets released from prison, what he do back to the community, Paul Paul and Barnabas. 

[00:10:08] After, after a two year missionary trip, what did they do? Back to the community, Paul and Silas, after persecution back to the community. So you're getting this constant reinforcement that something is not only. Really fundamentally important about community, but God is often doing something dynamic in that community and amazing. 

[00:10:27] And I think it's a reinforcement of the power that, that the spirit of God wants to, to dynamically empower not just us as individuals, but as us, as a community. And, and we draw from that. And, and I think post, post lockdown in its various forms across the earth, I think is probably reinforced some of those ideas for us as 

[00:10:47] David: Mm. Well, I, I love how just the, the spirit is working just in ordinary homes in the way that you describe it there as well. That, that, again, There is this world of I, the word power structure sounds so intense and formal, but there is a structure to how we see prestige. There's a structure to how we see authority. 

[00:11:13] There's things that we imagine I mean, you and me are recording this in. Aftermath of the Queen's funeral, right? And there that was not a funeral, like ordinary funerals, that funeral communicated things about authority and wealth and prestige and, and, and all of those sort of things. 

[00:11:33] And what I love in acts is the Holy Spirit is not approaching the world. The way that we would and, and that shouldn't surprise us because Jesus was born in a man, right? But, but so often, even followers of Jesus, you and me, will battle this throughout all of our lives, as will everyone listen to this podcast. 

[00:11:56] We get drawn into this way of thinking that assumes that that's how it works. So you spend time on Instagram and here's the people doing well. And then we don't see the people that are not doing well cause we don't post about that sort of stuff. And I, I love the idea that, You can be listening to the two of us talking on a podcast, and, and we know some of the people that listen to us, we get messages. 

[00:12:20] Some people are pastors, right? Some people are working in, in influential spaces. Some people are, are listening while they're going for a jog. Some people get in touch with us and, are saying, Well, I'm not even like what you would classically call a Christian, but I'm, I'm listening to this podcast and I'd love. 

[00:12:37] That what AX is telling us is the Holy Spirit is open to work, 

[00:12:42] John: Mm. 
 

[00:12:43] David: whoever you are, whether you are listening to this because I'm, I'm, I'm preaching sermons to help people or whether you're just, out walking a road, not even sure what you believe. Somebody said, Hey, you should listen to these two guys with strange accents, 

[00:12:59] They might, and, and what, what you're hearing at acts is the Holy Spirit works where he's welcome. And, and I, and I think this, that's a message from the first century, but, but Luke is. Writing this and it's this thread, this beautiful golden thread that read through both his books. I think he wants us to take that message home. 

[00:13:19] That you can return to your ordinary, So Peter and John go back to the ordinary. You can return to your ordinary. And guess what? That's where the Holy Spirit might shake you. that so, So you don't need to jump on a plane and fly to where it seems like something extraordinary is happening. 

[00:13:35] Not that we're discrediting the extraordinary, but. But to just confess that the Holy Spirit is absolutely perfectly happy working wherever you are right now. And I, I don't know, John, I just, I love that about the New Testament and about 

[00:13:52] John: absolutely. No, it's beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful. And, and, and as you were, as you were reflecting, I was, I was just thinking about, some of the people who welcomed the Holy Spirit into their world in a book of accent. And you get that, Mary opened her home, opened her home in Jerusalem, clearly an influential meeting place where it's the first place Peter goes when he gets outta prison. 

[00:14:16] So it must have been a fairly significant gathering place, and it's referred to as Mary's. and the mother of John, Mark, and then, and then, the first church planted in what we would call today, Europe is in Lydia's, home And, and of course I, I just can't help think that Dr. Luke again is reinforcing the idea that that certain. 

[00:14:42] People are mentioned because they represent for, Please forgive me, I know people will hear me properly here. They represent the margins or they represent the ordinariness, or they represent maybe certain types of people that may not be top of the list for a God move. And yet these little bits of detail are included because I think Luke is doing exactly that. 

[00:15:03] He's saying actually, if a, a Gentile business woman opens up her heart and opens up her home, the Holy Spirit will. If, if an influential Jewish woman in Jerusalem opens up her home, Holy Spirit will come. And, and you get these gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous, I, I, I love the Act 16 thing, you know where it says The Lord opened Lydia's heart, and then immediately it says, and she opened her home. 

[00:15:27] I love, I love that, just that reciprocation. Okay, You've opened my heart. I'll open my home. And, and, and the Holy Spirit comes. And I, and I love the fact that wherever these believers are meeting for this prayer meeting in the next. there is an openness to the Holy Spirit. They are inviting the Holy Spirit in. 

[00:15:45] They're inviting the presence of God in. And of course, in this particular case, we see a profound demonstration of that in, in that way. I just, I just love that. Just love that. 

[00:15:55] David: And then, and then of course from the other end of the scale, I always love the conversation between Paul and King, a gripper. In X 26, where, where Paul's telling him all the things and the gripper replies, Well, are, are you trying to persuade me to become a Christian too? To which, to , to which, to which Paul replies whether quickly or not, verse 29 of X 26, whether quickly or not, I pray to God that not only you, All who are listening to me today. 

[00:16:25] And, and, and there's just, And, and so actually to your point that, that, that the Holy Spirit is, From, from Lydia to Mary, but you know, king of Grpa too, cuz he's also part of the ends of the earth. So it's, it's not to hear that God doesn't care about the normal power structures, it's that everybody's being treated as, as welcome to, to if they will open their hearts to it. 

[00:16:50] And I j it's just gorgeous. It's just gorgeous. It's, it's, it's that layer. That when you pick up a text like this to read is not instantly apparent in the text itself, but if you just spend a little bit of time thinking about the big story that Luke's telling, you're realizing it is there. It's part of the message of this text. 

[00:17:13] John: Absolutely. And it's totally ingrained in them. And, and, and I think you know, that this is part and parcel of who they are. And, and, and for me, again, I, I just caught, as you were reading, I just caught the, the emphasis again, verse 24. They raised their voices 

[00:17:30] David: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. 

[00:17:32] John: In prayer. And of course we, we spent a lot of time on act two and the very first opening verse of ACT chapter two, they were all. 

[00:17:40] Together in one place. So, so, in X four we're, we're about to see a sort of a, a really, a supernatural feel to a moment where, where stuff shakes, where there's a physicality to their experience in that. And of course in X two, we, we've seen this incredible outpouring of the spirit. And one of the common themes is they're, they're, they're gathered as a community, but this sense of, they. 

[00:18:09] Together. They're, they're, they're at one. And, and it seems that when they're at one in community, that this as a, at a community level, this seems to be a real a real, can I say invitation? Is that too strong? But, but certainly an attraction to the Holy Spirit. That he's not just drawn to the, to the community per se, but he's drawn to community that is. 

[00:18:35] Together and you get this beautiful sense of, of togetherness with within that. Does, does that make sense? Sort of a, a, again, as a, a repeat idea saw so, 

[00:18:50] David: if you look at this little passage that we are reading right through to the end of the chapter, Luke almost seems to, and I'm just kind of looking at this as you were, as you were sort of talking about that there, but he almost seems to bring his full compendium of words to describe all the different ways. 

[00:19:12] That they are together, right? So, so you get, you get this notion here in verse 24, they, they raise their voices and the English translation gives us together. Right? But, but the word is, is kind of, I mean, it's, it, it's a, it's a construct of, of 

[00:19:32] John: Yeah, 
 

[00:19:32] David: homo in that sense. So, So it's. It, it's with one mind or with one accord. 

[00:19:39] So that it's not like it's, to me, to me, I'm thinking now of, of soccer metaphors. There's you, I've been in this situation and, and I'm gonna say this with great pain, John, but you, you will really enjoy it. But I, I've been to football stadiums and watched games and you can just hear just loud. Crowd noise, right? 

[00:20:02] But one of the most incredible places I've ever been was, was in the Cop right? For a Liverpool versus Manchester United game. Now that was, that was the closest to Jesus I've probably ever been, cuz I was a Manchester United fan in the Liverpool. I mean, there's no more Liverpool place in the world than the C is there. 

[00:20:22] And but even as a, a, a fan of the, the opposing team, There's this moment, and the moment where all of a sudden they all start singing, You'll never walk alone. Right? And it switches from, it switches from a stadium full of people making a lot of noise to a stadium of one voice. And, and, and even as a fan of the opposing team who have a. 

[00:20:46] Deep, long and bitter rivalry. I would still say it was one of the most incredible sporting moments of my life to be in that place at that time and, and almost using that and, and we've maybe seen it on TV with it. There's a difference between. Together and together with one voice. So, so you get this in verse in verse 24, but then as the text rolls down, you, you get then in verse 31, there, the place they were gathered to together was, was. 

[00:21:16] Were shaken and they were gathered together. But now it speaks more to them as a collective, as a, as a, as and that, and then, and then in verse 32, we've not read that yet, but jumping ahead, they were of one heart and soul. And then you get and they owned everything in ko, in, in, in common, right? 

[00:21:35] So it, it's as if Luke is just trying to build this image. Of the Holy Spirit knitting everything together in all of the different ways that things can be together. And, and I, I think, I think we should pay attention to that. 

[00:21:50] John: for sure. And, and, and I notice cuz because when I, when I saw that and heard that, I sort of tracked it back as well on a notice, for example. Chapter one, verse 14. They, they were together and, and the context there is prayer, 

[00:22:06] David: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:07] John: which is a really, a really beautiful, and then the one that we've referred to already, two verse one. 

[00:22:13] They were all together in one place. There's a, there's a a together in place. 

[00:22:18] David: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:19] John: then I, I, again, we, we lent into this really hard to, in 2 46, that sense that they're sort of together in their practices which you've got that, that sort of conclusion that they continued daily together or in one accord in the. 

[00:22:38] David: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:38] John: is, this is now developing, for some of our listeners who really want to track this idea, we're, we're only in to the end of chapter four, and this together idea is mahu. I mean, it is absolutely relentless. And there seems to be a link between together and a special type of togetherness, not just, Hey, it's good to see you looking at the back of somebody's head in a service. 

[00:23:06] But this idea of one mindness together in heart together in thinking together. In a commitment to something and your analogy of Liverpool fans at Anfield, I mean, I have been there in such a moment and it's, it's just worship without Jesus, isn't it? It's, it's, it's an absolutely spectacular goose pimping moment if anyone's ever experienced it. 

[00:23:29] Whatever your allegiances are. , but I loved your analogy. You're absolutely right. It goes from individual noise to a corporate voice and something powerful happens in the corporate voice, which doesn't happen in the individual. Noise. Noise is noise. But a voice is a voice, and and, and I think you're getting that here with Dr. 

[00:23:51] Luke. We are now bumping into this together idea, this one mind idea fairly consistently, and we're. Tripping over the end of chapter four and we keep bouncing into it. So I I, for me, there's always, and this is a great little reflection for our listeners, I think when you, when you, if the Bible says something once, we should pay attention to it. 

[00:24:13] But when the Bible repeats, sort of keeps circling round to an idea, I think we should, we should be paying attention. And, and that is certainly an idea worth tracking in a bug of x for me. And, and, and, and for me, it's at the heart. It's the heart, David of my ecclesiology. It's, it, it is this idea of, of together. 

[00:24:34] It's very powerful. 

[00:24:35] David: Well, the early church, just coming towards the end of the biblical period and into, the sort of second century as the church becomes more established and starts to build its structures, it's interesting that the word that they use to describe the word the church is the word Catholic. 

[00:24:54] Right. Which is a word which we have. Turned into more of a denominational word. So people hear the word Catholic now and they think the Roman Catholic Church, they think about the Pope and, and all these sorts of journeys. But, but prior to all of that, you have this Greek word, this, this development from Keta Hus according to the whole, that the, and I, I think it's a beautiful word. 

[00:25:18] The early apostolic creed, we believe in, in the Holy Catholic church and. Often when people hear that, sometimes when we confess that in our church, people say, Are, are, are we, Are we Roman Catholics? And we say, No, no, This creed is from much, much earlier than that before we broke down into all of these different divisions. 

[00:25:37] But think about, I think it's a great question to ask yourself as Christians, why did the early church choose that word? And I think it's because the theology that they were exposed to, the reflections they had about the work of the Holy Spirit. It's holistic, The Holy Spirit's bringing us all together. 

[00:25:53] So I love the idea that when they decided to describe what do we want to say about the church, the two words they chose were who? and Catholic. Right? It's and I think there's something holiness talking about the grandeur of what God is doing in US and Catholic in terms of it. It's about all of us together. 

[00:26:12] Now and I, I would confess with some pain that probably. That doesn't describe so much of our experience of the church in the present world, but I'd love that it's there in the vision of what the church is, is, is about, 

[00:26:26] John: Yeah, totally. And, and I think if we can, if we can move beyond that as a sort of an organizational idea 

[00:26:34] David: hmm. 
 

[00:26:34] John: and see that as fundamentally, um, organic in the spiritual sense. I, I, I, over the years I've met so many people and we think about together. Purely functionally, 

[00:26:49] David: Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:01] John: to be together and not be together. Right. . I mean, it, it is possible to go, Yeah, yeah. I, I really like going to church and what we mean by as attending a service and that's wonderful, 

[00:27:11] David: Mm. 
 

[00:27:12] John: but this together is describing something slightly different or not different, let's say that, let me say more, deeper, further. 

[00:27:22] So there is a togetherness that that actually drives us into a oneness. 

[00:27:29] David: Mm-hmm. 

[00:27:30] John: And, and I think I, I, I, I think that's the idea that that's the heart of the idea that you've just articulated that it's not just about oh yeah, I'm a member of X local church. But it's a sense of do we have together community experiences? 

[00:27:48] Do we have, are we together? And, and I would suspect that for many of. That's, that's not a, a common experience meeting church services with other Christians. Very common experience being together. Less common. 

[00:28:08] David: Yes. 
 

[00:28:08] John: And, and I don't wanna sound like some sort of judgemental, pious, person there. 

[00:28:13] I, that's really not my heart. This is as much a challenge to me as to anybody. But it's that idea of, of really investing in together which is, is more than attending together. And I and, and I think in X four here, that's what you're getting. I think something is happening that's more than just, Oh, this is our regular prayer meeting sort of thing, or This is our regular Bible study meeting it. 

[00:28:39] There's something else going on here because I think there's a deeper together. 

[00:28:42] David: I mean, I think there's a lot that we could say about that, John, and I'm thinking even in, in his commentary on Acts that Willie Jennings talks about this exactly what you're saying there, but he talks about it. In chapter five that he explores this idea and, and, and he's, he's very critical, actually. 

[00:29:05] He's quite a hard read, but he's critical about how the church has tended towards. Creating different forms of togetherness that actually work against the togetherness. And, and so one of the places he actually goes after it is in how we think about marriage, right? And how, what we often do, and, and let me try and say this succinctly, but how, what we often do within the church is we, we. 

[00:29:32] Elevate marriage to a status that it can't sustain on its own because we see all, that's where you're gonna find togetherness, right? But then what we do is we expect marriage to carry all of the togetherness, that a person needs. Right? And, and that then, and he says, We make almost this idol of the couple, which makes church a hard place if you're not married, right? 

[00:29:56] It makes us highly jumpy about marriage in all of its forms, and then when it doesn't work properly. But actually, if I understand him correctly, what he says it sometimes marriage allows us to ignore. That we're not building community within the church because as long as our church is made up of families, it appears that there's lots of togetherness in, in the church and in the community. 

[00:30:21] And I, I mean that cuts, as a pastor, you think, Oh goodness, that's a challenge. But I think it's this sort of, I think it's there even in what you are saying today, that that, that there's an intentionality to the community of the church that is more than. Then we are often seeing, right. 

[00:30:38] I imagine. Does that, Does that, 

[00:30:40] John: totally. On the money. On the money. And if any of our listeners are singles for whatever reason they will have experienced probably the difficulty of breaking into that community a little bit. And of course some, some church communities have worked very hard to sort of try to acce that. 

[00:30:56] And, and I think what hasn't helped us in modern churches that we've become very programmatic and as a result in much of. Together is program driven rather than fostering dynamic, relational heart and expression of that relation in ministry and community. So, so, we often turn up to church as it were, forgive that language, but we often turn up to a church service and we are essentially in a programmed event. 

[00:31:29] With either members of our mini community or friends that we've met when we're there. And for most of it, as soon as that programmed event is over, we go home. We may have dinner with one another, we may not. So, so actually the programmatic approach of the modern church, where virtually everything we do is, is designed around. 

[00:31:51] A sort of a programmed event when we gather is, is in a very subtle way. Also, I think, militating against this idea of being able to look each other in the eye. So for years and years and years, we would, I'd go to a communion service, close me eyes and. and just think inward thoughts. And actually then you realize when, when Jesus broke that bread for the last slash first time with his disciples, they all had their eyes open. 

[00:32:17] They were all looking at each other. They were all actually handing the bread to each other. They were sharing the cup. It was meant to be done, not just with your eyes up and your eyes in, but your eyes out. It was meant to be done looking in the face of people around you and that sense. Commonality, that sense of community and that sense of together and, and somehow, especially in our very highly individualized western concept, I, I think we've, So my gotta try and find a way 

[00:32:42] to get back to that if we can. 

[00:32:44] It's not easy, tough, tough topic. It's, I mean, it's easy to talk about it. Very difficult to do, but I, I, I read this together in the book of Acts and I think, my goodness, when they were together, stuff. Seemed to happen 

[00:32:57] and I want to have it together. That is more than just meeting I, I want it together where we are sharing hearts and living together and welcoming the word of Jesus and the presence of the Holy Spirit.