As a loving disciple, who am I supposed to love? I am supposed to love the church! The community of faith! What is that supposed to look like? As a disciple, we are not a bunch of Lone Rangers! We are not a bunch of individuals! We love and serve God together! We are the people who know what it means to BE...LONG! We know what it means to look for a place to BE...LONG to. We know what it means to have a desire to be accepted...to BE...LONG...to want to be loved. We know what it means to try to find BE...LONGING. We know it what it means to BE...LONG to the Christ! We know what it means to BE...LONG to the body of Christ! This morning we need to be reminded what this community of believers is supposed to be like!

Sometimes the church needs to be reminded that people want to BE...Long! The church needs to be reminded that people are DESPERATE and desperate people push caring people away! You see...we need to be reminded that people in the community are disconnected...they are disconnected from other people...they are disconnected from Christ...and they are disconnected from the body of Christ! As a result, they make desperate decisions!...if you would like to hear more...go the WEBSITE and listen to last Sunday's message! We also need be reminded...that as we continue to become a church with the community at heart! We need to remember the forgotten! Who is the forgotten...what is forgotten? That is a question...that only you have the answer to! I can tell you this...you see them all the time! Here is the problem...many of us have forgotten them! Just like the man in our passage today!

Everyone has a longing to "BE"...to be something...some people want to "BE" accepted, some want to "BE" rich, some want to "BE" a father or a mother, or a husband or a wife, some want to be successful, some want to "BE" president. Everyone has a longing to "BE"...to be something...here is the problem...no one starts off in life saying I want to "BE" a prostitute, or addicted to drugs, or an alcoholic, or a murderer, or married 3 or 4 times, or living with 3 or 4 or 5 different people or broke all of my life or existing day to day. So...what happens? How do we end up going through the motions of life and ending up in a situation that is not God's best for us? It sounds too simple...the problem is that while we are trying to "BE" something...or even discover what God wants us to "BE"....we have a basic human need to belong. We have a longing to "BE" and a longing to belong!

Guest Speaker, JonMark Baker.

One of the things we must learn to do is to become aware of the nudge of the Holy Spirit. We must to learn to live by the nudge of the Spirit. What is a nudge? The dictionary defines it like this: (1) to touch or push gently; especially : to seek the attention of by a push of the elbow. (2) to prod lightly…to urge into action. A nudge is more than just a touch…it gets attention…or it can be course correction.