2011 was the first complete calendar year we spent at The Commons. Yesterday we spent our worship time sharing stories of what God had done in our midst. The stories were powerful, evoking tears, laughter, and even applause at what God had done. In short, it was a tremendous year filled with successes. Those successes are a testimony to the God we follow, but I want to share a few of the themes that emerged in yesterday's stories and across the lessons that we gleaned from the past twelve months.
1. Community. At least half of the people who are part of The Commons did not actively participate in a church-community a year ago. They each have different reasons for deciding to join The Commons, but one common denominator for them deciding to join is the rich community they encountered at our church. When people visit for the first time, we get out of our seats and meet them. We hug their children, shake their hands, and get to know them. There are some people who want to be anonymous; they do not last long at The Commons. Our church is small and welcoming, making it difficult to hide.
A few practical things we do to build community:
A. Confession. Community does not simply mean welcoming. Our Community Groups are forging real relationships in which real confession of sin and confrontation of issues is happening at a regular rate. Consequently, bonds are made as relationships are strengthened through the weathering of difficult circumstances.
B. Regular communication. I do not want to act as if all who attend The Commons are best friends. That would be false. Some are quite close; others only talk to one another on Sundays or at Community Group. But the relationships are real and intentional, and people notice if they are missed. Each Sunday we have a time in our weekly gathering where we text those who are missing. It started as a one-shot occurrence. Now it happens every single week. People are noticed when they are gone, and it makes our church-community tighter.
C. Serving each other. Additionally, the people truly love one another. They cook for one another, call one another, and serve on another. You cannot really teach this, but as our church has heard the New Testament, they have lived it. The Commons has quickly turned into a richly relational community.
2. Simplicity. I have two jobs. I'm a high school teacher as well as Pastor of The Commons. As I mentioned elsewhere, this makes my job difficult from time to time. Rather than attempting to add staff we can't afford, we've taken a different approach. Our church has decided to ask its members to run the majority of the ministry. We have volunteers leading worship, running sound, editing the website, running the children's ministry, organizing the nursery, strategizing, organizing our Community Groups, etc. In a sense, our entire church is bi-vocational. Consequently, we have to keep everything very simple. We can't have a lot of meetings; we can't have a huge structure slowing things down.
We meet on Sunday mornings for worship and Common Kids (about to become Common Families) and our Community Groups meet during the week. Aside from our serving in the neighborhood, that's all we do. The reasoning is simple: That's all we have time for.
Our structure is simple, and, for some reason, our people have embraced it. I hesitate to say it's "the right way" to do things. But it is how we've done things. And it has worked well for us thus far. We continually have to resist the urge to pile things on, but resisting that urge has proven healthy thus far.
3. Discipling. We had two Community Groups on January 1, 2011. Now we have six. Few experts would call that growth "explosive," but it has been steady. When we get together we always do a few things: 1) We read the Bible together, 2) we pray for one another, and 3) we eat together (sometimes it is only Communion we eat). But around our discussion of the Word, praying for one another, and eating together, relationships have been formed and disciples have been made. And disciples attract other people. And then groups have to multiply. There's really nothing else to it. People like studying the Bible, learning how to follow Jesus, praying for one another, and seeing God answer those prayers. But God continues to bless it.
4. Serving. In 2011 The Commons baptized six people in the YMCA swimming pool. Our church growth was almost exclusively because of the three things listed above and our desire to serve in the neighborhood. We served the teachers of Sue Crouch by feeding them, giving them gifts, and loving them. We loved our neighborhood by working neighborhood events and serving breakfast at the Neighborhood Garage Sales. We loved our city by serving and giving to Cornerstone Assistance Network. We loved our immediate neighbors by prayer walking the neighborhood and just talking to the people we live around. And God blessed it all.
In retrospect, it all seems pretty mundane. We loved one another, kept it simple, studied the Word, and served. But it all added up.
5. Listened. The final thing is, of course, the most important. We worked to listen to the Holy Spirit. Bob Roberts challenged me to give an hour to God every morning. He told me to read the entire Bible each year and to listen for the leadership of Christ. So I started. I missed a few days here and there, but through 2011 I spent more time with Christ first thing in the morning than I ever had before.
Later in the year Bob invited me to meet Terry Virgo and to read Terry's book, The Spirit-Filled Church. The book challenged me, but we began to work to incorporate the Holy Spirit and His leadership into as much of our church as we could. So now we regularly stop in worship and listen for God's voice. Our groups stop to hear from God. We have stopped during worship to lay our hands on people and to pray for their healing.
As I've told my church, I'm a recovering Southern Baptist, so much of this is difficult for me to comprehend, but I'm convinced it's biblical, as the book of Acts demonstrates. And God continues to show up and show that it is not only biblical, it's also effective.
If I could challenge you to do one thing in 2012, it's to start each morning reading the Scripture and listening for God's leadership. Sounds basic, but it's huge. It's beyond huge. It's transformational. You can't understand it until you do it, but you need to do so immediately.
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