"And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.  And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son.'  But the father said to his servants, 'Bring out the best robe and put [it] on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on [his] feet.  And bring the fatted calf here and kill [it], and let us eat and be merry; for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' And they began to be merry."  -Luke 15:20-24 (NKJV)

Friday night was small groups at my brother Brian's house and I was in a reserved mood.  I brought my girls in their PJs, being that we were guaranteed to stay past their bed time.  I decided to wear a track suit.  Think Ben Stiller in The Royal Tenenbaums, only mine was black.

As I pull up to the door, Brian greets me with "hey, what's up Tenenbaum?"  "Hey, what's up.  I made it," I say.  I never saw that movie, was it any good?  Brian says no.  Mmm...is he insulting me?  No, he says he likes the outfit.  I tell him I'm ready to run laps.

We settle in to our "comfort zones" as best we can and enjoy a tasty dinner.  My sister-in-law Sarah B can really cook, so it's funny to me that when something tastes "ok" to us, it's not good to her.  I didn't hear her apologize for the food this time, so my palette wasn't fooling me - it was really good!

As the evening wore on, the post-food discussion turned to "how has the small group gatherings met our expectations?"  I was never part of a small group before, so I saw it as an opportunity to grow our relationships and get to know each other.  So far, my expectations were being met.

One of the talking points of our group is the fact that we were going nameless.  Our first idea was to change our name every other week based on who was hosting the next meeting, but that wasn't received all too well.  We ended up settling on the Black Sheep. 

The name works.  We were going nameless, for one.  But the other fact is that we all were once lost in the LBC.  No, I'm not talking Snoop Dogg's acronym for the Long Beach and Compton areas in southern California.  I'm talking about Life Before Christ.  That was before small groups too, by the way.  I'll develop the whole LBC concept in future blogs, but for now I want to expound on the BS.  Not that BS...Black Sheep, remember?

First off, it was significant to me that we took our name and one identifying as an outsider while meeting at my brother's house.  Brian and I have been competing for the black sheep label for a long time in our family.  I became the prodigal son after high school.  At first, things were great while at Grove City College, but I was kicked out after my freshman year for poor grades.  Over the next year or so, I spiraled into a severe depression and it wasn't until I met my future wife that I started to get my act together. 

God still had a lot of work to do in me before I was fully trusting and relying on him though.  The depression made me weak against the devil's temptations.  The foundation of my relationship with Melody was more about self-esteem and personal affection and less about Christ.  The odd part about that is that Christ does supply all of our needs, including self-esteem and personal affection.  However, we were living for ourselves instead of living for Christ.

Thankfully, He was working His purposes through us to draw us to Himself.  Through stripping away all our barriers and forcing us to confess our sins, we repented of our sinful ways and sought the love and support of our family and friends.  God used it to convict our hearts, realign our focus on Him as the center of our relationship, and also blessed us with the birth of our firstborn - Naomi Ann.

As I really think about it, I've got Brian beat on the black sheep label as well.  Brian is a great guy.  I don't know what he's done to deserve the outsider label in our family.  We are very different people in a lot of ways.  He's musical, mechanical, and skinny, while I'm into sports (used to be athletic too), intellectual and fat.  He has a factory job working with his hands (not in a dirty kind of way, of course).  I have an office job working with my brain.  Not that I don't use my hands - I type on the computer - or he doesn't use his brain (he troubleshoots machines).  No, I think Brian really got the black sheep label from our grandparents when they thought he was gay.  All he really did was hit puberty and have a sense of humor about it.

Perhaps it is mostly a personality trait that gives Brian his black sheep persona.  Sometimes, that can be a good thing.  Brian's always been his own person and not one to go with the status quo.   I respect him greatly for that.  However, I respect him even more knowing that he places his acceptance in Christ.  Not having to please everyone to get into heaven is a great relief because it's an impossible task to begin with.

I'm not sure if any of you remember this song, but there was a rap song in the early 90's by a group that called themselves "Black Sheep".  The song is called "The Choice is Yours."  The chorus incessantly repeats, "You can get with this; you can get with that."  I'm not sure if it's really talking about drugs, two men fighting over one woman or it's talking about the gospel.  I'm pretty sure it's not the last one, but I can apply it to the gospel knowing that the free will He gives us means it is our responsibility to choose wisely who we will follow.  Here's the Black Sheep video (WARNING: don't click on it if you hate rap):


The more I thought about it, it suddenly came to me - we, as Christians, are considered as black sheep in this world.  We are the outsiders.  Christ warned His followers that just as the world did not receive Him, we shouldn't expect to be accepted either.  However, our acceptance comes in knowing Him and the fact that He is preparing a place for us in heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father.  The Lord of Creation reigns over all.

As the core of the discussion went on, I think what we confirmed is the need to be more attentive to one another and to pray for each other.  After doing the popcorn prayer thing, we started to the trickle out the door.  With almost everybody gone, I went to the basement with Brian and Jon Morris came down for some good ol' fashioned video games.  After messing around with some Atari-type action, we finally settled in with some Playstation car racing game.  It was like being a kid again.  We didn't leave until 12:30.

Thankfully, we did make it home safe and sound.  I went straight to bed and fell asleep quickly.  There was no need to count any sheep, but we can take comfort in the fact that God is watching us and knows us by name.  That includes the members of the Black Sheep Small Group.  We should get tattoos.