I've mentioned this in some entries before. The truth is I don't really know what it fully is.
I can't answer what 444 is in totality. I can, however, expound on what it isn't. And perhaps more importantly share what it has meant and continues to mean to me.
It's not a club.
It's not a social gathering.
It's not a clique.
It's not us wanting to separate ourselves.
It's not anything I've ever been a part of before.
But before we continue, a history:
I know how odd that sounds. "444" comes from the hotel room number where the majority, not all, of the members of the group were put in 2007's Joshua Revolution. But it isn't really about the people that were there, but the experience inside.
Apart from two to three guys there we were all pretty much adrift in our Christian walk. Some of us weren't even Christians. I said that I accepted Christ a long time ago, but I question the validity of that statement. I don't think I was truly sincere, so I count myself one of the few saved specifically because of that nice hotel room, 444.
We shared. It helped that the guys there were roughly the same age, and had the same experience. We talked about things that I'm sure we didn't share with other people, even the ones we considered close to us.
We did devotions. Alvin helped me do my first one. It was a mess. Good experience but I was nervous, confused, and tired from a sleepless night of talking.
I didn't know it then, but the room was permeated by the Holy Spirit. The whole place was.
And we all had a common background. We had walked away from Christ or were starting to. This is why we attract the members that we do. Most everyone in there has turned his back on Jesus for a long time, some even for years.
Years.
Years.
YEARS.
Just think about that. I can't fathom a day-to-day life without Him now, how did I go for HALF MY LIFE without (paying attention to) Him? (That's in parenthesis because He is there, you're just not listening.)
Can you? And if you can, please talk to me. Or better yet, Him. Right now.
We have the same experience. We walked away, paid the price, and were dragged kicking and screaming back to life.
So we get back from Joshua, on shaky but happy feet. And we try to get 444 started up, but the debut practice interfered with that. So we tried to get it working after that, and we lost the Two Vins. We didn't want to stop our fellowship, we weren't going to let our experience become a memory.
We gathered. We prayed. We shared. But this time we shared our new struggles, not our past failures. A new member was added to our room, by "accident" of the Holy Spirit on the last nights of Joshua, and we added a new member as well who wasn't even in Joshua with us.
Here endeth the History lesson.
I can't really communicate the growth of everyone in our group. When you see learning, understanding, application, and experience shared it's beyond words.
It's a support group. We relate to each other because we stumble at the same pace.
It's a refuge. It's a fellowship. It's what the Men's Fellowship are trying to establish on their weekly jaunts to restaurants and bowling alleys.
I know there are those who worry that being babies, and I'm quite certain we still are in some ways, we need some form of structure to follow. Some set lesson plan.
It's not a "Bible Study". We study the Bible though, it's word and application. But it's not the scholarly approach you do on Friday nights, it's the sharing of that.
We are teens and 20-something guys. We take the Bible seriously, we study it, and we share what we learn from those structured Bible Study lessons, personal devotions, and share what it means in our lives and how it affected us. I know it seems that we try to keep this to ourselves but we're really
not. One, who had long been hanging out with us during 444s and we
had to ask him to leave before we started joined after we finally
invited him. He fit right in. Same backstory.
It's testimony time mixed with Morning Manna and a meal fellowship. It's also training time, but hey we're guys, we like that.
Think of it this way; it's a Remedial Sunday School class for those sheep who skipped the other Sundays. Plus lunch.