KingsWay member Ben Taylor speaks from the heart about the ways the Lord uses Ben’s church family to unite him to the people of God and to care for his soul.

In recent years, it's been important to me to be, in some measure, in regular fellowship with people with whom I don't have all that much in common outside of our faith in Jesus. The benefits of this kind of relationship first became apparent to me after living with a fellow believer with whom I did not have much in common outside of our faith in Christ. As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another : being in community with people who don't necessarily share my upbringing, interests, hobbies, or tastes causes me to regularly come to terms with the fact that the core of my identity and my greatest joy is my relationship with God through faith in Jesus and my unity with the people of God. This has a natural way of deflating ego and helping me to be able to see in real time what Paul said in 1 Cor 12: If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? “As it is, there are many parts, yet one body" (1 Cor 12:20).

Also, I have seen what Jesus meant when he said, "Truly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands, for my sake and for the gospel, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions, and in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29-30). Not being part of a family who shares my faith, I don't have a built-in source of prayer and biblical counsel. But in the church, and in a more concentrated way, in my community group, I have many mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. I have people who have given me a place to stay when I needed one, people who have been faithfully praying for me (not just when disaster hits, just regular prayer for my life, my career, & people I love); I have people who have helped me care for my dad with Alzheimer's by setting up meal trains, delivering food, and visiting us in person; I have people who have sat and talked with me in their living rooms when I needed counsel for adult-sized issues that I feel totally insufficient for. I often think about how God has used the church, and in no small part my community group, to support me and help me to grow much in the same way that family should.

Ben Taylor