Small groups are networks. . .They create bonds among people. Expose people to needs, provide opportunities for volunteering, and put people in harm's way of being asked to volunteer. That's not to say that being there for worship is not important. But, even in earlier research, I was finding that if people say all the right things about being a believer but aren't involved in some kind of physical social setting that generates interaction, they are just not as likely to volunteer.

Do you see how the circle broadens? Not only do we have the individual calling of God upon our lives to be saints, not only do we have the privilege of being in intimate relationship here as a local congregation, but we also are linked together with other brothers and sisters throughout Orange County, the State of California and the rest of the United States.

Advertisement

When a crisis hits like Hurricane Katrina, we are able to mobilize ourselves in a few days' time to raise well over $210,000, and we are able to plug ourselves in as the family of God with sister churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas, to feed, clothe, rebuild lives devastated.

And our family is even much larger than that as Americans. We are linked together in a universal family of believers everywhere on Planet Earth. That's why I take such joy in being part of international gatherings such as the Lausanne Congress on Evangelism held in 1989 in Manila, of the three great gatherings of pastors and evangelists Billy Graham put on in Amsterdam, and the assembly of the World Council of Churches I attended in Canberra, Australia, in 1991. At each of these events, brothers and sisters from most of the countries of the world gathered together and, through simultaneous translation, heard great addresses, marvelous worship and celebrated the sacrament of the Lord's Supper together.

That is why I get excited about our ministry teams from St. Andrew's who travel to serve brothers and sisters in Christ in Malawi, Egypt, India, the Philippines, Mexico, and the list goes on. I can link arms with my brother in Christ, Elmer Lavastida, in Cuba, who lives just 90 miles from our country but in a totally different world. He can minister here at St. Andrew's, and I can minister in his church in Santiago de Cuba. We embrace together in Jesus Christ.

And the circle widens even farther.

One of my dear friends is Dr. George Docherty, a rugged Scot who for 26 years was the pastor of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. You may remember him as Peter Marshall's successor, or the pastor of Abraham Lincoln's church located within a stone's throw of the White House. He was the one who encouraged President Eisenhower and members of the United States Congress to include "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, which Civil Libertarians fought so viciously this week. The court has declared the Pledge of Allegiance can no longer be recited by California public school children.