For the next five months, we are embarking on a prayerful process of learning and listening as a church to see where God is leading us. Pete and the elders asked a team of people to outline what turned out to be a really beautiful process to hear God and each other deeply. You can see it here (scroll down to the last page). Even beyond the overall leadership team, there is a fresh new team of people leading our congregation into discernment in a different area each month, each area building on the one before. This means there is this large base of diverse voices leading us toward hearing God as a body. Which is really exciting to me. Because that is a recipe for God to do powerful things.
I am excited for another reason too. So often, across my own life, and across the cloud of witnesses we see in the Bible, when I see God poised to do powerful things beyond what a body of people can imagine, that body of people doesn't necessarily start off looking confident and purposeful and strong and shiny. That body of people looks... well kind of awkward. Uncomfortable. Maybe confused. Nervous. Shaken up. Maybe limping a little. They look like a body who might just be ready to let go of their own safe plans and ask God to lead them into His. POWERFUL things come out of that moment. That is a Kairos moment. A turning point.
So here we are at BSLC. A body of people at a turning point, a Kairos moment, poised to let God lead us into great things.
We are going to need to prepare ourselves for that. That’s what this month of January is about. Preparing ourselves to WALK TOGETHER through that process. Because I will tell you, the powers of darkness in this world want to torpedo this thing by torpedoing our unity and our intentional choice to love each other well.
Ephesians 4 is the passage we are focusing on this month. It gives us a fantastic map for preparing ourselves to walk forward together. Take a moment now to read the couple little bits I pulled out for you here.
I want to draw out one little bit of that verse. It is the part that refers to God the Father, who is OVER ALL, AND THROUGH ALL, AND IN ALL. Everywhere we are going is predicated on believing that verse. Because that is what binds us and is the only thing that carries us forward together. Our unity will not come from our human agreement with each other. Because the fact is, we won't agree about everything. We aren't meant to. We are a diverse people, by design. Our unity must come from this God, this One Spirit that binds us. And when we enter a time of being shaken up, often by God Himself, we have lean into the belief that God the father is OVER this time before us, THROUGH this time, IN this time. And that He is right in the midst of each other, even when we disagree.
In our class this week on unity we have been talking about what it looks like PRACTICALLY to tap into that Spirit. God has been showing us something small and actionable we can do to turn to God when we feel angst. Stay tuned here in the next couple days for a little "how-to" to get you started in that powerful habit, or to go there more often in times of stress.
(Written by Anna Hoesly on behalf of the PLI leadership team who is shepherding us through the month of January)
I am excited for another reason too. So often, across my own life, and across the cloud of witnesses we see in the Bible, when I see God poised to do powerful things beyond what a body of people can imagine, that body of people doesn't necessarily start off looking confident and purposeful and strong and shiny. That body of people looks... well kind of awkward. Uncomfortable. Maybe confused. Nervous. Shaken up. Maybe limping a little. They look like a body who might just be ready to let go of their own safe plans and ask God to lead them into His. POWERFUL things come out of that moment. That is a Kairos moment. A turning point.
So here we are at BSLC. A body of people at a turning point, a Kairos moment, poised to let God lead us into great things.
We are going to need to prepare ourselves for that. That’s what this month of January is about. Preparing ourselves to WALK TOGETHER through that process. Because I will tell you, the powers of darkness in this world want to torpedo this thing by torpedoing our unity and our intentional choice to love each other well.
Ephesians 4 is the passage we are focusing on this month. It gives us a fantastic map for preparing ourselves to walk forward together. Take a moment now to read the couple little bits I pulled out for you here.
I want to draw out one little bit of that verse. It is the part that refers to God the Father, who is OVER ALL, AND THROUGH ALL, AND IN ALL. Everywhere we are going is predicated on believing that verse. Because that is what binds us and is the only thing that carries us forward together. Our unity will not come from our human agreement with each other. Because the fact is, we won't agree about everything. We aren't meant to. We are a diverse people, by design. Our unity must come from this God, this One Spirit that binds us. And when we enter a time of being shaken up, often by God Himself, we have lean into the belief that God the father is OVER this time before us, THROUGH this time, IN this time. And that He is right in the midst of each other, even when we disagree.
In our class this week on unity we have been talking about what it looks like PRACTICALLY to tap into that Spirit. God has been showing us something small and actionable we can do to turn to God when we feel angst. Stay tuned here in the next couple days for a little "how-to" to get you started in that powerful habit, or to go there more often in times of stress.
(Written by Anna Hoesly on behalf of the PLI leadership team who is shepherding us through the month of January)
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