A Drifter Among Us

I'm writing this because there has been something laid on my heart more recently that I think I need to address. Last fall my community group discussed what some of our core values would be (worship,beauty,honesty,mission), and while we've done a few things that have served the church, we can do more to be on mission. With that being said, I'd really like to get my group serving together in some fashion.

I read over this recently and it was helpful as a reminder to me. Here's an excerpt of what we as a local church believe:

"Mission is intrinsically connected to community. In the gospel of John, it is said that the unity of the church is vital if the world at large is to believe and experience the Christ sent from God the Father . Further, he said that we, the church, would be identified as followers of Christ only when we are sacrificially loving one another, which is another way of true Biblical community . It seems that the gospel of John points us to a reality that is both awesome and frightening: The believability of the gospel which the church proclaims is directly linked to the “realness” of its community. Could it be that many times, the gospel cannot be fully comprehended outside of this kind of real community?

Living the gospel, ie – being on mission, can take many forms: explaining the gospel to a friend or stranger, carrying out acts of compassion, or by being faithful to sacrificially love those in your church. The challenge is for all of us to stay in “mission-mode” and not to default to “maintenance-mode.” When it comes to being missional, it is easy for Christians and local churches to be content in our bible studies, worship services and small groups and to forget the world. We do not drift toward mission, we drift away from it. It is not easy to be missional, it is hard work, it takes intentionality. It is much less stressful to hang out with people who look the same, smell the same and believe the same things we do. It is uncomfortable and challenging to intentionally spend time with people who hold differing world-views. But we must push through this discomfort because we are the church. We are the church, the called-out ones. We are the church, the sent-out ones. We are the church, on mission for the sake of the world."

So here's the deal, I've been throwing around a few ideas of what we could do. I want to avoid the type of things that seem like a "quick fix" of serving our city without making a difference for more than just a few hours. I want to do something that makes a lasting impact on someone and will be a blessing to them for years. Whatever it is, I'd like to see myself and my friends become missional by getting uncomfortable and messy with the world outside our community group.

I've took the step of applying to be a Captain for a volunteer team with communityloopstl.com . It's a website put together by Mission St. Louis to identify needs in the community and gather people who have the resources to meet them. There are tons of opportunities to serve in different ways; Yard work, Home repair, Painting, Plumbing, Electrical, Small Fix-Ups, Cleaning, Moving, etc.

Anyways, I need to start thinking AND praying of what we can do, as a group, to love our city more. If you're reading this take a little time to look through the site and see if there's anything that you think we are capable of doing OR if there is a person in life that we can bless and minister to by our service.

Love you guys and am excited to see how we can follow Jesus,

-JR