Roughly fifteen years ago, while still immersed in the evangelical church, I spent time in what I still called, by force of habit, a Sunday School Class composed of couples drawn together by a memorably charismatic teacher. Shortly after joining the class, that same teacher’s vocation promoted him to a new role requiring relocation, but most of that core group of couples stayed together for several years. Perhaps they still fellowship together to this day. For me, that group often provided glimpses of what some call “The Acts 2:42 Church.”

When you hear the word fall, you probably think of a downward motion.

Fall is almost always followed by down. Gravity, which causes objects to free fall, is intuitively understood as a downward force. Even our current season of Fall takes its name from the annual phenomenon of dead leaves falling down from trees.

Falling can be scary.

I remember sitting in London City Airport at 5:00 AM, watching TV through a coffee-fueled haze as the 2016 U.S. presidential election returns scrolled across the chyron. My colleague and I were on a U.K. customer swing, and we were catching the first flight out to Glasgow.

It was supposed to be a good morning.