Don't Get Too Comfortable

So I am hanging out in Bend, Oregon snow on the ground, sitting in a circle with a group of 12 young adults (18-35). They call themselves the 99 Collective…the what??? The 99 Collective, looking back at the story of the shepherd that leaves the 99 behind to find the one lost sheep, and yeah we feel like the lost sheep a lot, but we also have felt like the 99. What are we doing when we feel like we are in solidarity, I feel like that right now. I have a home church that I love, I have a seminary that I am totally a part of and in all that I do, but I feel completely whole and ready. So I look at the “99 collective,” and what do you know, many of us are standing around saying, “What can we do, while we feel like we sit and wait?” I think that the answer that has escaped me more and more these days is the preparation that goes from being part of the group that believes and feels comfortable. And why are we comfortable? People are dying from hunger, disease, and abuses of sexual and physical nature, and we are comfortable? What a great reminder that although, the joy of seminary is like thinking, that like thinking needs to daily reach out past comfort and challenge ourselves to be ready for when God brings another sheep home.