Matthews Family Herald

We had our weekly family gathering time last week, which is the only body fellowship we have right now, and the Lord gave me the idea of using the "stone soup" example. We all got together and I brought a large pot in. I said, "We are having stone soup and everyone has to bring in something to make it good. But it must be stone soup. It cannot be stone soup without three things: A pot, water, and a stone inside."

So, I got out a pot and said "This is the Holy Bible" and I set the pot on top of a copy of the Holy Bible. "The water is the Holy Spirit. The Rock inside is Jesus Christ," I said and I placed the Rock in the pot first, pouring the water on top. "Without the Rock, it's not stone soup. Without the water, the food would burn up. (I thought of this also just now: The water brings out the nutrients and should be drank) The heat will not be distributed evenly as the items simmer together, and it just won't be soup. The pot, the Holy Bible, is the context that the soup is contained within. (I thought of this as well: You need the whole pot to hold the soup in. Leaving part of it out won't hold the soup in.) The constraints of the Holy Bible keep the soup in the form it belongs in and we would have no soup without the pot. Nothing would stay together.

I then went on to hand out plastic toy vegetables to each person in the room. I challenged them to "bring something." To "Think back through the week and tell something that God has done, an experience you had in the Lord Sing us a Holy song, read a passage the Lord led you to this week, something." Each person did so, one by one, and placed their items into the soup as they shared. Even the baby, Eden, sang us "This Little Light of Mine" and it was a blessing for all.

I also emphasized how dead attempts to do something in the Lord could be born out of one legitimate and God inspired event like this "Stone Soup" analogy. Whole demoniations are born out of things like this where, 20 years later, there's a still a silver pot by the alter. The congregation comes in, takes a plastic vegatable and sits down waiting for their turn. Trying to hold on to a point God was making and turn it into man's attempt to create God's movement over and over.

The family said it was likely one of the best family gatherings we'd had. I think the whole experience shares a lot about what body fellowship should be. What kind of soup have you been drinking? Make sure it's actually stone soup.