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  • Mark 8:47 am on August 11, 2010 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , CO2, Life Transformation Groups, ,   

    Micro Rhythms 

    Our Micro is really blossoming in some wonderful and formative ways.  (Read more on the Micro Layer.)

    It began with going strictly by the LTG brochure you can read all about on CMA’s website, 25-30 chapters of God’s Word each week, 10 character-conversation questions (accountability) and praying for the “sojourners” in our lives.  We then tossed in some material from CO2 (Church of 2), learning to tap into what is going on in “my heart, your heart, and God’s heart.”  We found both of these structures helpful and we flow pretty seamlessly between both of them.

    We read plenty of God’s Word. We use YouVersion.com‘s free, customizable Reading Plans to stay in sync with each other – each day reading the same Scriptures and dwelling in the Word – letting God speak to us as we cultivate a spirit of “listening prayer.”

    We check in with each other…as close to daily as possible. At the end of our reading and journaling, we take 5 minutes to write an email to the group – writing what we thought about, prayed about and heard from God during our reading.  It gives us a daily “check-in” opportunity, even when we are not meeting up with each other in the flesh.  When we meet up once a week, we don’t have to spend all our time going over the minute details of our life because we already know!  Instead, we check in spiritually -

    “What are the deep issues of your heart, today?” “What are you hearing from God?  What are you doing about it?  How can we help you?”

    We usually have more than enough to share with each other!

    We confess sin to each other. Each week we ask, “Is there anything we need to confess today?”  Sometimes its sin that is shared, other times its a testimony!  When sin is confessed, the others listen closely to the one confessing, and when everything is said, they respond by saying,

    “I hear what you are saying.  You’re right – this is sin, and wrong…but God forgives you.”

    Hearing these words is like salve to the soul…

    We pray for harvest workers and for the lost in our city. We meet at 9:00am-10:30am each week – and at 10:02am our cell phone will chime reminding us to pray the pray we read in Luke 10:2 - “Pray to the Lord who is in charge of the harvest to cast out workers into his harvest field!” We take a few moments to thank God for what he is doing in Chicago, and to plead that God open up the hearts of those we know who are searching for truth.

    After 9 months – this is what our Micro looks like.  It has embedded within it the seed of a faith community – and while our group may not look exactly like others that start, our rhythms can easily be passed on and re-molded in countless ways.  Have you thought of trying it?  It’s AWESOME!  More and more Micros are starting in our house church network all the time, and I believe it makes us healthier.

    I wouldn’t give up my Micro for anything – it is a chance to be real.  It is a band of brothers.  It is the core and starting place of mission.  It is life transforming!

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  • Mark 1:54 pm on December 13, 2009 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: augustine, bonhoeffer, , , robert putnam   

    The Need for Community 

    *Below are some notes I took while reading through part of Kenneth Boa’s Conformed to His Image. Some lines are direct quotes, others are my own thoughts – my college professors would hate to see them all mixed up like this – but consider yourself warned.

    ———————————–

    God created us as relational beings; and because of this we thrive best in community. Community is the hotbed of spiritual growth and renewal, yet it is a fragile and vulnerable space for the Evil One to invade and undermine.

    In the Western world, we are seeing an attack on community (not just spiritual community) on just about every level.  There is a fierce pursuit of autonomy, self-actualization, privatization, avoidance of accountability, and a nuanced form of narcissism called “self-esteem.”  Read up on this in the foundational book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam.  In addition, we as Americans have a heritage of distrusting institutions, traditions and especially authority.

    This blog post is not about wishing for days gone by, but about recapturing the biblical vision of covenantal community.

    Certain Christians groups emphasize either the individual, or the corporate.  Evangelicals really push their attention to the individual’s justification of self before God.  Other groups accent social justice and relevance in culture.  The dangers of irrelevant privatization on one side or mere social ethics on the other are the pits on both sides of the path.  Scripture seems to find a balance by affirming the good news of kingdom living in the present tense.  The spiritual life is both personal and social; both dependent on God and active in the world.

    God IS Community

    Scripture clearly shows God as a relational being. Even before the creation of the world God is in a pure, loving community of three (Father, Word, Spirit).  Since God made us in his likeness, we have been created for community with him and with one another.  As we make the choice to enter into that original divine relationship, we become members of a new community that is called to reflect the Godhead in its corporate unity. [youversion]John 17:22-26[/youversion] In essence, our Lord tells us, “If you love me, you will love the people I love.”

    The private/corporate polarities mentioned above are reflected on well in one of my favorite books on the topic, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together:

    “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and the community…You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out.  Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; You are never alone, even in death…If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you.”

    [youversion]Luke 6:12-19[/youversion] is an excellent text on moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry.  Jesus spent the night in solitude with God, in the morning he formed a community by inviting his disciples to follow him, then in the afternoon Jesus ministered with his disciples to the physical and spiritual needs of the crowds.  This is a path we can follow too.  Community is the bridge that connects solitude (intimacy with God) with ministry to the world.

    True community is not a collection of lonely or isolated individuals but a dynamic interaction of people who know they are accepted in Christ.  God does not call us to be” Christians at large” or “a colony of hermits” but a vital organism of others-centered people of which Christ is the head.  True solitude and true community enrich each other through their creative interplay where the horizontal meets the vertical.

    The corporate life of the body of Christ is not optional.  Its never easy, but we are impoverished without it.  Among other things, it provides:

    • relational enrichment and commitment
    • trust, love, and acceptance
    • mutual submission out of reverence for Christ
    • physical, psychological and spiritual healing
    • nourishment from the common work of listening to God’s voice together in Scripture, prayer, and life.

    Challenges to Community

    The Church has always had its manipulators, controllers, and faction builders.  Even worse, few of these people even realize the the corporate damage they inflict, and usually paint a veneer of concern for the best interests of the group.  Just look at the church in Corinth.

    In [youversion]Phil 2:3,4[/youversion], Paul recommends “Do nothing out of selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”  Learning to please only Christ, the irony is that we can then find the right position to truly meet the needs of others.

    The fundamental threat to community is self-centeredness, the vital builder of community is others-centeredness rooted in Christ-centeredness.

    Hell is self-centered and isolational; heaven is others-centered and relational.  Having a corporate spirituality is costly because it asks us to go against the grain of our fallen instincts for privatization and personal control.  But Scripture reminds us that joy is only experienced in full when it is shared, and atrophies when it is hoarded.  Thomas Merton has said plainly, “We are not at peace with each other because we are not at peace with ourselves.  And we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.”

    The Key to Creating Community

    Surrender and self-denial in Christ is the KEY to biblical community. It is in this context we can read Augustine’s profound prayer, “Lord, your best servants are those who wish to shape their life on your answers rather than shape your answers on their wishes.”

    The Church does not exist for the individual – it is inappropriate to leave a church when it no longer “feeds you.”  Maybe its a calling from God to bring some of your own spiritual food to the potluck!

    You cannot wait for the perfect group of people to arrive to “start your church” – you must surrender your ideal of community to allow the one before you to thrive.

    So you think you really want a taste of this divine community?

    True community in Christ is not created by attempts to “make it happen;” instead, it is a by-product of others-centeredness – which comes from losing our life to seek Jesus. [youversion]Matt 16:25[/youversion] Death is the only way to resurrection.  Conversion to Christ and to the cross should in turn lead to conversion to community.  Everything you do alone in the Lord is useless without it. [youversion]1 Cor 13:1[/youversion]

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    • Michael Coghlin 1:00 pm on December 15, 2009 Permalink

      Hey Mark,

      I just started receiving the House 2 House newsletters and noticed a “Mark Willis” as one of the contributors. Combining my sharp wit with the brute force of Google (and your well-laid-out blog) I put two-and-two together to realize, “I know this guy! I sat in class with him! Wow…” I’ve recently become involved with a network of house churches in Calgary, AB.

      So, though I’m not responding to your post, I am giving you a hearty “hello, eh?” from chilly Canada. I look forward to reading more of what you’ve written.

      Grace and Peace,
      Michael

    • Mark 2:43 pm on December 15, 2009 Permalink

      How exciting man! Praise God for what he’s up to in Calgary. I’ve actually visited Calgary (and Medicine Hat) a long time ago and loved it while I was there. Hope to keep in touch with ya – do you have a blog or anything?

  • Mark 9:11 am on August 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply  

    The Trajectory of Integrity 

    “I will lead a life of integrity in my own home.” – psalm 101:2

    How does this happen? What are the markings of a life led by integrity?

    Some words that come to mind when I consider the word integrity:

    Blameless, innocent, intentional, reflective, coherent, consistent, honest, authentic, concious, mindful, receptive, steadfast.

    - Read this list again and ruminate on each of the words. Which ones especially stand out to you? What in this list surprises you or angers you? Pay special attention to you instant reactions and emotions. What else might you add or remove from this list?

    I feel like God is calling me to step it up a notch in the way of integrity in my life. Integrity is for me a gift offered to me through the Holy Spirit. When I live centered not on myself but on the Lord, quickly I begin to sense things in a new way. I begin to look for what the Father is doing in this situation or that relationship. In a previous post I considered a life lived with relentless attention given to hearts: mine, God’s, and others. I believe a life oriented in this way opens me up to several things which leads to a life of integrity.

    First, it opens me up to my own shadows and hypocrisy. When I am honestly looking into my own heart, discovering my wants and desires, I begin to see a pattern that either reflects light or darkness. This is the point where I become honest and authentic with myself- a key starting place on the road to integrity.

    At the point where my attention to my own desires and the desires of God’s heart collide is where I see the narrow road I must walk toward integrity. Failure to bring God’s heart into the clear focus of my thoughts and prayers makes me humble, aware that my desires sometimes do, but often do not offer a sure path to the blameless walk of integrity I deeply desire. I must pay attention to my heart, yes, but only as long as I am willing to submit it to the Heart that I seeking after.

    How do I trust that my attention to my own heart and the heart of God is authentic, and not a self-delusion I concocted in order to satisfy my own desires? I am convinced it is by paying relentless attention to the hearts of others as well. They bring the heart of God into clearer view, and they call me out when I am hiding my own heart from them, from God, or even myself. When a family of God pays unyielding attention to hearts, it launches each of them onto a trajectory of integrity and points them toward fulfilling their unique purpose God has prepared them to do on this earth.

    I want to continue to process what happens when I am simply aware of the most powerful motivator in the universe: the human heart.

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    • angela 10:02 am on August 22, 2009 Permalink

      This term has been used so much by promise keepers, that my first reaction was that this wasn’t for me, but for my other half! Then I was surprised with the word intentional- but you are right, integrity is not just avoiding temptation and selfishness, but also choosing right. Thanks for the challenge.

    • Mark 10:13 am on August 22, 2009 Permalink

      Thanks Angela! I just stumbled across your heavenly shudders blog. I love it! Keep up the great posts and photos…

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