The freedom to hang out...

I spent most of my life in a GCX church....However, I feel like I only lived half of my life in the GCX movement that is described in these forums...

For the first half of my life,
my GCX church seemed to keep their distance from the organization (at least publicly) and seemed like a fairly normal church (kids programs, youth group, neighborhood activities, etc.). I didn't even know we were part of any movement until near the end of High School when we first started going to Faithwalkers.

Looking back and seeing how things changed in my church as it got more and more involved with the GCX Movement,
one thing that has really stood out to me is that things were really good when the leaders weren't heavily involved in our groups or setting our agendas.

If they gave us a place to hang out (a house or a church) and gave us the freedom to just be us, we made it our own and everyone felt welcome to participate and belong. We ate together, watched movies, played games, (sometimes even went out dancing) and grew very deep in our friendships. We shared our hearts and we laughed and cried together. There was no agenda, except to be the body of Christ to all and each other; to live and love all as Christ did.

That is one of things I miss the most and it's interesting that those were the times that the GCX Leaders were the least involved or were not setting the agenda.