My favorite book of the Bible is Hebrews. The author uses Jesus as a lens for understanding the past and in doing so he retells Yahweh’s design for reconciliation between Him and His People. Hebrews describes a plan from before creation; a plan of peacemaking that involves a great high priest, blood, and a Sabbath rest. Its pages tell of the great faithfulness of God throughout all generations.
The author brings the story to a head by stating that since God has used all these things in Christ Jesus to bring us to himself we must:
hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:23-25)
I bring this up, because during the last few years I have “neglected to meet together” with other believers in any consistent way. For a myriad of reasons, I lost track of my place in the story of reconciliation that is spoken about in Hebrews. I chiseled the grand story of Christendom down to Matt Brown’s personal walk with Jesus. He became my High Priest, not our High Priest. He was my savior, not our savior. It was my life… my faith. No “Body of Christ” needed.
And then we found out that Isla Mae was going to be born. Suddenly my selfish story was going to bleed all over somebody else. How could I expect to model all the aspects of relationship with Yahweh on my own? How would I tell her about communion, baptism, charity, and grace? How could I encourage her to discover her gifts and use them to build up the family of God if all she had were her folks? I can just see it now: “Hey Isla, I really feel like you may have the gift of serving…why don’t you clean my office?” “Hey Isla Mae, go use your gift of exhortation to get mama to make dinner?”
Reducing the story of God down to me and my family loses the heart of the transforming work of Jesus. As a guarantee of our salvation He has given us His Spirit and brought all of us into His story. We are all pieces of his body and we need each other.
This realization fermented for a year and a half as I sought counsel for how to break out of my solo story mode. I spoke with as many wise men and women as I possibly could and the resounding word was that Joy and I ought to consider starting a gathering in our home. It didn’t need to be complicated. It didn’t need to be anything other than a place for us to follow Jesus alongside other people.
With all that in mind we drew inspiration from Bread & Wine and accountability from Epic Wineskins and opened our doors to a Gospel Community. I say opened our doors, because I don’t believe we’ve started anything. Our group is made up of people who are all in rather similar circumstances as us. We’re all asking the question of “how can we be the church in this world?”
For us the answer has boiled down to four things:
Prayer:
Taught and modeled through lifting up one another, our communities, our world, and our leaders.
Scripture Study:
Wrestled with and applied one book at a time.
Communion:
Genuinely walking through life together.
Service:
Actively looking for ways to reflect our God into our neighborhoods.
We hope to be a Community of Good News. People who follow after their God while praying for and serving those around them and those throughout the world. It is simple. It doesn’t need a building, staff, or ministry teams, because we’re just being who Jesus has intended us to be. We're "holding fast to the confession of our hope," while stirring “up one another to love and good works,” and “not neglecting to meet together.”
We’re taking part in His story.
How's it working out?
I read some of your blogs posts and really enjoy them. It is nice to see someone with a passion for the poor and working towards social justice. May God bless you. It is nice to see a fellow laborer.