The mutiny against excess begins...

    Five women sat around the cozy confines of a familiar room. Over the past year in this same house, a group of young 20-something ladies have gone from awkwardly getting to know one another to hardly waiting until the following Tuesday evening meeting. These sisters have shared countless intimate moments, cried over difficult times, celebrated small and large achievements, laughed beyond control and hung onto the very last thread of hope in this roller-coaster of a life, knowing we could make it because well, we have each other. These girls are my army, my pack, my team that goes with me wherever I am sent out into this world. These girls are where I come weekly for water, for breathe, for a heavy dose of rain to fuel and refresh and nourish and keep on going out into this world.

    What in the world would I do without these ladies?

    Jenny Allen set our hearts in a place of surrender, and helped us to see that everything in our life, our passions, gifts, suffering, places and people involved, they make us who we are. Her study Restless defined our sense of identity in Christ and helped us to see that our existence is purposed with a much greater plan than our own. Together, we encouraged each other into who our Creator uniquely designed us to be.

    Now, another Austin-ite is taking our group on a journey. Jenny laid the blocks, and now  Jen Hatmaker's study 7- The Experiment, Staging Your Own Mutiny Against Excess, will only serve to build on top of hearts willing and ready to be changed.

    The 7-Experiment faces 7 forms of excess in the American culture- clothes, spending, waste, food, possessions, media and stress.

    We are committed for 7 months, each month focusing on a different category of excess, each month calling for a different form of fasting, study and awareness of our abundance and privilege that might actually be related to someone else's poverty.

    Tonight, we asked ourselves challenging questions, like how has excess distracted us from God's kingdom at work?  What do we think God might be calling us to give up? What in our life calls for simplicity and less of ourselves?

    Together, we are afraid we might be holding a little security and comfort in things that aren't real and that there might be areas of our life that were never designed to feel so comfortable. We are concerned that we might have become unaware of our privilege and unmoved by our greed. Something in our well-adjusted American lifestyle needs to change. We are simply asking God to disrupt our peace during this season, any peace that is not rooted in Him and His kingdom, may it be seen. We are asking Him to reveal the unknown within ourselves, to humble us and to help us make more room for His voice and His work in our life.

    We know we will make mistakes, we know we are just normal people trying to make improvements in our spiritual lives and find understanding of the reality of poverty and lack in most of the world. We are trying to make sense of our culture and how to live in it without normalizing the excess that is such a hindrance to the daily peace we could be having and the justice it could mean for a world living naked and hungry.

    May the blinders be removed so that we can see the excess in our life, the selfishness in our hearts, and a better way to use the resources we have been given to better serve those with less. Let the mutiny against excess begin.