Leadership Thought: The Night I Missed a Meeting and the Lesson I Learned from It.

Dear Friends,

It's an awful feeling when you miss a meeting. It happened last night.

I had an evening meeting scheduled with a couple of our church leaders, but unfortunately, I trusted my memory and not my calendar for the meeting. The call came. As soon as I saw the name flash on my phone, I knew what I had done. I missed a meeting I was scheduled to be at.

When things like this happen, and hopefully they don't happen very often, the guilty party is generally filled with discomfort and embarrassment.

What do you do? What do you say? How do you apologize? And most importantly how do you deal with the guilt you feel for wasting the valuable time of those involved who are impacted by your oversight?

I simply apologized for missing the meeting, for inconveniencing them, and wasting their valuable time. 

All of this got me to thinking about another missed meeting that happened over 2,000 years ago.  It was the evening after Jesus was raised from the dead, and all the disciples were gathered in the Upper Room when suddenly he unexpectedly appeared to them. They were all there except one.  Thomas was missing. 

I wonder why Thomas missed the meeting. Did he have a good excuse?  Did he forget that the disciples had planned to be together-perhaps to commiserate the death of the One who had transformed their lives? Did he just not care about being with his spiritual family? For whatever reason, he missed the meeting of a lifetime.

I often share with people who are absent from worship that we are not the same without them. We are a family and when one of our family members is not present, we are not the family we are meant to be.

Meeting together is an important part of Christianity, the early church "continued steadfastly in the apostle's doctrine and fellowship" (Acts 2:42).  "As we walk in the light, we have fellowship with one another" I John 1:7).

Fellowship allows us "to instruct one another" (Romans 15: 14). If we are absent from the body, we miss the opportunity for our spiritual family to teach and instruct us.

Fellowship allows us "to bear one another's burdens" (Galatians 6: 2). We all have burdens as we journey through life, and sometimes those burdens are too heavy to bear ourselves, and we need our brothers and sisters to help carry the load.

We can't carry one another's burdens from a distance. Bearing burdens requires a level of intimacy that is not possible when we don't have fellowship with others.

Fellowship allows us "to comfort and edify and build up one another" (1 Thessalonians 5:11). When we are absent from worship, we miss the opportunity to encourage, and build up one another.

Fellowship allows us "to stir one another up to love and good works". (Hebrews, 10: 24). It's impossible for us to stir up one another if we're at home sitting in the comfort of our easy chair. Absence discourages, rather than encourages others.

We cannot live the Christian life in isolation. We need each other.

Tonight, I missed the meeting with my two church elder friends, and I'm the worst for it. And when you and I miss our weekly opportunity to be with other brothers and sisters in worship, not only are we the worst for it, but your family is the worse for it as well.

Yes, ministry takes place from the pulpit to the pew and from the pew to the pulpit, but it also takes place from the pew to the pew and when those pews or chairs are empty, the church is not the family it was meant and called to be.

Fellowship is a place of grace, where mistakes aren't rubbed in but rubbed out. Fellowship happens when mercy wins over justice." Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here for?

Yours in faith and friendship,

Tom