A community of voices
From the monthly archives:
As you are reading Revelation 2-3, do you discover a pattern of the letters to the seven churches?
If there is a pattern, what does it look like?
If the Church has a beginning at Pentecost, how does it end? What does the ending look like?
the discussion continues on Sunday Oct. 5 …
Below is a list of random topics that I’m open for discussing during our sunday gatherings. I’m definitely no expert in any of them, but they’re all topics I’m up for learning more on.
Open source curriculum design helps create content that senses the pulse of the community and hopefully engages you best. Feel free to choose up to five topics that you would like me to bring up over the next while as time permits.
Loading ...I read a blog today that I want to share it with you all. It is written by the founder of Adventures In Missions, Seth Barnes, who post his blog daily. Enjoy!
Posted in Community and Church by Seth Barnes on 9/10/2008
The point is that God designed us human beings as communal creatures. We need one another – we need real connection and real encouragement just to make it through life. That’s why God told us not to “forsake assembling together.” That’s the point of church – not all this ecclesiological falderal you see in a lot of institutional churches.
We don’t need pseudo connection and we don’t need a pantomime. Life dishes out a steady dose of stinging wounds that can only be touched and healed in a place of deep trust where you are known and loved. Fail to find a place of encouragement with people who know how to love and you become callused and jaundiced. It’s frustrating if you settle for a facsimile of the original, but if you find it, it is so worth the search. I got the following in an email newsletter from John Eldredge last week. He really gets it. It was long, so I edited down a bit.
Going to church with hundreds of other people to sit and hear a sermon doesn’t ask much of you. It certainly will never expose you. That’s why most folks prefer it.Community will reveal where you have yet to become holy. It will bring you close and you will be seen and you will be known, and therein lies the power and therein lies the danger. Aren’t there moments when all those little companies, in all those stories, hang by a thread? Galadriel says to Frodo, “Your quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while the Company is true.”
Most churches survive because everyone keeps a polite distance from the others. We keep our meetings short, our conversations superficial. “So, Ted, how’s everything going on the Stewardship Committee?” “Oh, just great, Nancy. We’ve got a big goal to reach this year, but I think we’ll be able to get that gym after all.” No one is really being set free, but no one is really at odds with each other either. We have settled for safety in numbers-a comfortable, anonymous distance. An army that keeps meeting for briefings, but never breaks into platoons and goes to war. Living in the community is like camping together. For a month. In the desert. Without tents. All your stuff is scattered out there for everyone to see.
A true community is something you’ll have to fight for. You’ll have to fight to get one, and you’ll have to fight to keep it afloat. But you fight for it as you bail out a life raft during a storm at sea. You want this thing to work. You need this thing to work. You can’t ditch it and jump back on the cruise ship. This is the church; this is all you have. Without it, you’ll go down. Or back to captivity. This is the reason those small house fellowships thrive in other countries: they need each other. There are no other options.
God is calling together little communities of the heart, to fight for one another and for the hearts of those who have not yet been set free. That camaraderie, that intimacy, that incredible impact by a few stouthearted souls-that is available. It is the Christian life as Jesus gave it to us. It is completely normal.
Hi All,
My team and I are now safely back from our trip to Benin. I want to thank you for praying for us during our time there. God is certainly working in the other side of the world and I can’t wait to share it with you. Please visit our blog at http://jesuslovesbenin.blogspot.com to read about our journey and we hope to post some pictures and videos up soon!
Janet
Finally at the end of the reflections through the Book of Hebrews.
For an ex-terrorist Paul is incredibly empathetic. I love how he urges us to be compassionate towards strangers, the prisoners, and the mistreated. To really embody ourselves as one of them.
The Scriptures also remind us again of this idea of being content with what we have, and that the type of sacrifice God is pleased with is that of doing good works and sharing with others. How hard is it for us to believe this?
Submission to leadership is also alluded to here, not simply to honor God, but that the leaders work might be a joy and not a burden. What would it look like for you to bring joy to your bosses, teachers, and leaders?
The most fascinating passage of the chapter was this:
11The high priest carries the blood of animals into the Most Holy Place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. 12And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. 13Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore. 14For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.
Which could easily seem odd and obscure, but it really speaks towards how sacrifice happens outside of the holy place, outside of safety and comfort. Huddling within the church may be nice, but there is something better that is to come. There is something worth each of us leaving our safe places for, and sacrifice for…
Here’s a painting of our life group.
I can’t stress how important it is to have a faith community outside of the sunday flury of activities. It’s not easy always meeting up together but our group has had the opportunity to share meals, share homes, journey through a book together, share more meals, walk the streets, paint together, and simply share life together.
Don’t we all crave deeper community? To be more fully known in our fragmented society?
Continuing the reflections on Hebrews 12.
“In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” – In our own struggles with sin, and not to belittle them in anyway, what’s the worst that’s really happened when we’ve struggled against sinning? I doubt many of us have shed blood over it.
This passage speaks of God’s love and discipline. How might God be showing his love through his discipline in your life right now?
The last section is interesting for me, about receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken… it made me think of that old song about how “I” will not be shaken… but the scriptures describe it as something much broader than just me. and so for my life going forward, I’m reminded that odds are i will be shaken, challenged, disciplined, and fail… but it’s this kingdom, this new reality god is bringing in, that will not be shaken, which i’m blessed to be a part of.
