I had this thought. Yes, a lonely experience! Thinking about Jesus and His relationships with people - and His 'team'. He spent time on His own. He spent time with 3 selected men. He spent time with the multitude, with crowds, with hangers-on. But the picture we have of Him, and the stuff He did mostly, was with 'The Twelve'. Men, chosen largely because of their potential, from a fairly wide background. One was even a thief. Some older, some young. Some educated and some not so. But that is not my point. 12 is.
Since then all sporting activities have teams of 11 -15 mostly. Yes, there are '5's and 7's - and I know we have 'the bench' and so on. But broadly speaking we have teams of around the 12 in number. Interesting. Now in sporting events, we have the team 'performing' and the crowds 'spectating'...paying their money and watching.
Bit like church, really. When they met in homes 12 - 15 would probably have been the number of those gathering.....then they started to grow and the ambition of a few was to build larger - rather than more. When they had 12, they all brought what they had to the communal gathering and contributed to the body. Everybody 'feeds' - everybody is 'fed'. Simple, beautiful....and effective.
Nowadays, a few present something to the spectators. Few participate, few contribute. We pay our money, takes our choice, walk away. Jesus obviously got it right. He always did. Sporting teams know that 12 is a good number for strong relationship activity.
Where are we going wrong?
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