We are a few weeks into a new series on “Becoming Like Family”.  This is important as members of our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together as one church community.  We won’t be bound together by a building, or institution, but rather by five commitments.  We’ve talked about commitment to common learning goals, connectedness as a community of small and large groups, connectedness to God in worship, and now this week, we come to grace in lifestyle.

Those who’ve decided to follow Jesus, and walk in his path, are going to have to choose this over other paths.  These choices impact many areas of life.  That should be no surprise, but sometimes it’s hard to swallow.  We can recoil from rules, or worry about restricted freedom.

We’ll explore that this week, but it starts with understanding why we are asked to live by, and with, grace.

But what does grace mean?

There is a classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine is in a job interview, and the interviewer shares her admiration of Jackie O, who had “grace”.  Elaine tries to say, “I think I have a little grace” but the interviewer snaps back, “You can’t have a little grace, you either have it or you don’t.”  Elaine backpendals, “Alright, I have no grace.  I don’t have grace, I don’t want grace.  Hey, I don’t even say grace.”

You can see the confusion here – what does grace even mean?  Is it poise and kindness?  Is it a lovely name for an old lady that is finally making a comeback?  Is it a prayer before a meal?

Question: What do you think of when you hear the word grace?  What does it mean?

Reminder:  Last week we talked about worship, and asked you to complete our online survey about worship here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/8TS7K93

Reminder: Earlier in this series, we saw the importance of reading the Bible together in sync, so our new daily bible readings start today in our mobile app and web site.

Read the Bible in Sync Today