A Word to our church about "Being the Church".

Believe it or not, Palm Sunday is less than a week away. And, here at The Commons, we're going to celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem by stepping out into OUR city to joyfully declare Christ through some tangible acts of service.

One of the themes that seems to be coming up again and again for me as we press into this Launch Team season together is the conviction that God is calling us to learn how to BE the Church, before we make the leap to "DOING church". The trouble is that being - and tangibly living into our identity and call as - the Church is a much steeper, more challenging path. I love preaching and teaching. I love music and singing and leading people in worship on a Sunday morning. And those are good things - important, life giving and holy things; expressions of love and joy and of our corporate journey towards deeper and fuller intimacy with Christ. We should never forsake those things. However - relatively speaking - those are also EASY things for those of us who are familiar with and comfortable in traditional church settings.

But to BE the Church? That's a challenge. To meet people we haven't met yet, and serve people we haven't served yet, and to engage broken systems and families and neighborhoods because that's what Jesus himself would be - and is - doing? That'll stretch us. That's a road that will quickly find ourselves at the end of our comfort zones, experiencing the sort of risk that seems to settle in the pit of your stomach like the feeling of riding a roller coaster as it crests that first big hill. There is fear to be found on this path, and resistance. The Enemy has a vested interest in seeing the lost remain lost, and the broken remain broken. But scripture tells us that perfect love casts out fear (1 John 4:18), and that it is the love of Christ that compels us (2 Cor. 5:14) to press through whatever resistance we may face - internally or externally - to see those who Jesus loves come into his embrace in a new and deeper way. Yes, there is fear and there is risk on this path we are called to as the Church, but there is also life: deep, profound, abundant life.

I will confess, as I consider how the mission of God will press us beyond the ends of ourselves together over these next months, I have never been more terrified. Because it's a terrifying thing to come to the point this journey of faith where your own strength and competency and easy, natural compassion meet their end. To follow Jesus into a place where you would never have gone otherwise? That will make one wrestle with the definition of faith and trust. So, I'm terrified. But I've also never felt more alive, or more close to the heart of Jesus, than when I am on mission with him; out beyond the raggedy edge of strength and competency, where only His strength and His Spirit could do the work. That's where a life worth living is to be found, and I'm excited to go there with you all.