Sent out as Light & Life

Wire Jesus’ Character into one’s heart, living from hard-wired virtues/fruit rather than externals. 

God desires us to re-form us back into the men, women, and children He intended us to be from the beginning, before we became bogged down in sin.  We are to be people marked by faith, hope, and love who are joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, gentle, and self-controlled.  Unfortunately, looking around at our brothers and sisters in Christ and looking at our own selves, we quickly realize that these characteristics do not always define us. 

Yet, at the same time, we believe these characteristics can begin to become more and more ingrained in us as we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit’s transformation and as we take small steps to act in line with these Fruit of the Spirit even when we do not feel like doing so.  The question is do we want to look and act like Jesus?  If not, we stand in the way of God working within us.  If so, we can trust that over the course of our lifetime and beyond, God will transform us to take on Jesus’ characteristics and in so doing, become fully ourselves.

Work from a Place of Renewed Vocation

When God created Adam, the first thing He gave him was a job. He was to care for and serve the earth. He was to be a co-creator with God, a priest of creation who lifted up the stuff of the earth, transformed it, and offered it back to God and to others with thanksgiving. And though now work can be tedious because of the brokenness of the world around us, we have not lost our vocation to be culture-makers and creators of beauty, goodness, and truth. And we can do this in a myriad of ways - through engineering, composing music, science, teaching, organizing, helping others, writing, painting, home-making, raising children, etc. etc. etc. The means to do this are endless.

With this in mind, what is your vocation? What gifts and passions has He given you that can bring goodness, truth, and beauty to the world and also bring Him glory? (This could be through paid employment or in passion projects on the side.). Also, in your everyday work, whether it is your passion or not, how can you be the face of Jesus to those around you?

Walk the Path of Shalom: Hospitality, Compassion, Mercy, Peacemaking and Justice

In the beginning, God created a world of shalom - harmony, peace, goodness, and flourishing. However, when we turned inwards and away from God, the world became a place of dysfunctional relationships, violence, injustice, and destruction of creation. And while this brokenness will never fully go away until Jesus returns and renews the Heavens and the Earth, we can be signposts of the world to come by engaging in tangible acts of hospitality, mercy, compassion, peacemaking, and justice.

Witness to God’s Kingdom, being Jesus’ Hands, Feet, and Voice in the world & bearing Good News

The Good News of Jesus is for everyone because the redemption that Jesus brings is not simply for individuals but for the whole world. The Lord is renewing the whole earth and one day there will be a New Heavens and New Earth where every knee will bow before Jesus. Thus, we are to share the Good News with others, not in an awkward transactional way like some churches in the past have emphasized, but in an embodied way that builds on relationships, demonstrates the Gospel in word and deed, and involves sharing our stories of what the Lord has done in our lives.