On the daily: a paradigm shift

What are the things that we build into our schedules every day?

Only our most vital needs and goals, right? 

After all, it takes a fair amount of discipline and buy-in to choose any given activity as a daily activity. Things at this level of importance may even bring feelings of guilt when we don't stick to our predetermined daily rhythm. 

Humans are blessed like that; we can abstract our ideals and life vision, decide on the best long-term plan, and then make sacrifices in the short term to attain those goals.

Eating is a fun exception: we must consciously choose not to eat. Fasting from food is a significant conscious decision to postpone one, two, or three of the most essential parts of our day. Without a conscious decision and conviction about the benefits of not eating, our bodily demand for required nutrients dictates we eat every day.

Business people or entrepreneurs might put some form of productive work on their lists daily. For the athletically minded, a workout or a specified rest day is on the daily agenda. Many Christians would likely put Bible reading and prayer on their daily list, too.

It's also interesting that the general biblical narrative suggests work is healthy *almost* daily. Every day minus one. 

One thing that I wasn't considering for my daily agenda was meeting with other believers.

I've changed my mind recently. 

The early church likely met with each other every day. I was surprised when I heard this. A concept was hidden in plain sight.

This was one of my paradigm shifts, among others, in a very insightful conference hosted by Pastor Eddy Leo at our church. (Feel free to comment here or email me if you want a YouTube link to watch that conference in English and Japanese.) 

We see believers meeting daily in the Book of Acts. And Hebrews directly spells this practice out in one verse. Here are some paraphrases I wrote for key verses:

• Acts 2:46 - The early church met in the temple every day
• Acts 19:9 - Paul took the disciples with him and had discussions daily in the lecture hall of Tyrannus.
• Acts 17:11 - The Bereans examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
• Hebrews 3:13 - We should encourage each other daily.

Meeting every day is more critical than I recognized. With video call technology, it is much more convenient than it's seemingly ever been.

Meeting regularly with believers is essential and not optional. Everyone has different life circumstances and should define "regularly" according to Jesus' call on their life.

Applying pressure to perform some regimented mandatory meeting won't serve the purpose. Meeting every day with no exceptions would be something I couldn't do, and I wouldn't want to ask others to slog through that.

Instead, planning to meet with fellow Christians "as much as possible" seems like a helpful goal and a healthy way to express the heart of "encouraging each other daily."

Said surprising conference also shared a practical way to implement this practice daily. Stay tuned for that write-up soon.