The Look and Feel of it

It is one thing to have an idea about community and life together as followers of Jesus but for many people ideas are hard to visualize. So in this post I want to offer a senerio that might provide a way in for people to imagine their involvement in a new community of Jesus followers.

Question: What might this community look like?

There could be many different ways that this could all come together so I'm not saying that I have everything figured out, but rather these are some things that might help set the stage for growing the Kingdom of God and the People of God here in Fort Wayne, IN. As always I want to make sure that I'm not setting the agenda but rather that together we discern and follow the paths that the Holy Spirit will make clear to us along the way.

The gathering of people needs a place to gather. While much of the life lived in community will happen in homes and at work places and other venues the gathering still needs to gather. So what if we established a coffee house as a base of community. The coffee house would provide a common place for the whole body to gather weekly; for smaller groups to meet for more personal interaction, prayer, and study; and for connections to be made with people from the wider community. The added benifit would be that the proceeds of the coffee house could provide a living wage to employees as well as space that the community was not having to rent and only using for a few hours a week.

The weekly gathering:
When the people of God gather they have a need and desire to worship God. In the Bible that worship is expressed in many different ways. There seem to be some consistent themes that this new community should probably encourperate. Sharing of praises seems to be a consistent theme in the Bible. People need to be praising God for the presence of God/Jesus/Holy Spirit in their lives and encouraging one another through the telling of God stories on a regular basis. Worship seems to have themes of encouragement woven through the Bible. So that worship is not just praise but also includes teaching / sharing of the scriptures in ways that invite each person present to engage with God / Jesus / Holy Spirit in their daily lives.
Does this worship happen in a particuler style? This is something I am very unclear on as I think that worship must rise out of the gathered body and not be prepackaged assuming that it will speak to and for those who gather. So the "style" of worship must wait until we know further what needs as well as gifts and talents that God will provide for the worship to take shape.

Between Gatherings:
Spiritual Growth is something that happens for each person in their own way. Because of personality, learning styles, life experiences, and so much more each person is going to need to take responsibility to put themselves in the position to grow more into the likeness of Christ. This could happen in a variety of ways. A group of 3 or 4 people that work near one another might meet over lunch or before work to pray together, talk about the teaching from the previous week, and to ask one another how they can support one another in living out their faith at work during that week. A group of 10 -15 people might meet weekly to share a meal, talk about life, and share their God stories with one another. An individual might feel the call and have the passion to make a difference in a particular person or groups life and invite anyone else in the gathering to come and help on a particular task, event, or need. These are just a few of the many ways that the gathering might encourage one another to grow in their discipleship.

Details:
There are always details that need to be worked out for something like this to actually move from being an idea to a reality. I continue to be in prayer about the next steps and know that a number of other people are praying for this as well. If you have specific questions or would like to support this new gathering in one way or another please feel free to leave a comment here. I will not publish the comments unless you specifically ask for them to be posted so that others can see them.