Providing an avenue to psychological health. Exposing our tendency to scapegoat others... Just a couple of the things at play in Jesus' meaning-packed statement that he came to fulfill (not abolish) "the Law" of the Ancient Israelites.
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Jesus' famously evoked the images of "salt" and "light" in showing his followers how to be good news to the world around them. However, exhaustive polling of younger American's attitudes toward church & people of faith (conducted by the likes of the Barna Group) reveal quite the opposite of that... What if our church was good news to people?
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Jesus' Beatitudes (blessed are the poor, mourning, insulted, persecuted, etc.) are remarkable because no one actually believes them. But what if a community made it feel safe for people to believe them, instead of "blessed are those who present well"?
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The rhythm of marking Jesus' death and resurrection every year attaches us to the reality of God's continued alive-ness in our lives and world today, and how we can participate daily in resurrection.
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As the story of St. Peter being freed from prison demonstrates, the invitation to trust in God is not an invitation to live in a fantasy world where life always works out. It's an invitation to experience hope, care, love, and justice in the midst of the hard reality we all know: that life is in fact pretty unfair.
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Brown Line is lucky to have a number of inter-racial and inter-cultural couples making up our community. Their experiences can help us understand the story of Peter & Cornelius in the book of Acts and why Jesus loves setting up cross-cultural interactions.
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The story of the conversion of Saul of Tarsus (later, St. Paul) gives us pause to reflect on the many conversions and turning points that a full life includes... and also on what must come after conversion experiences in order to truly experience lifelong change.
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The encouraging stories of the earliest Jewish followers of Jesus beginning to connect with non-Jewish peoples in their region -- like Philip the Jew and a Eunuch from Northeast Africa -- feel like models for the kinds of interactions our church today experiences all the time.
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According to the book of Acts, collective spiritual experiences (like what we hope for anytime we gather on Sunday) are meant to build bridges beyond us and connect us to others.
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Could experimenting for a set amount of time as though you have high faith in God's ability to be actually (not just theoretically) good be an awesome experience for you? Could it be an awesome experience for our whole church as we hope to grow to a level of long-term sustainability? We think so! Join us for our 40 day prayer experiment...
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