“Are we there yet? No, we are not there yet… a little farther down the road… but not there… God is calling us to grow, and not simply numerically…
Our focus for this year will be heavy on Community… Community marked the early church…
The example of the life of Onesiphorus… (ON-uh-SIF-uh-ruhs)
Paul felt very much alone, he was in the prison that he would eventually die in, and felt very abandoned… In the middle of all this persecution his good friend Onesiphorus finds him…
Paul’s point in 2 Timothy 1:15-18 was clear… don’t be ashamed of the gospel or your relationship with me… some people have… but not Onesiphorus… follow his good example…
Onesiphorus’ (ON-uh-SIF-uh-ruhs) friendship had three main characteristics:
• He was committed (very zealous)
• He was consistent (ministering to Paul often [v18])
• He was courageously loyal despite the personal risk
Isn’t that really a picture of Christ’s love toward us… His friendship with us… Onesiphorus was just expressing what he had experienced in Christ to Paul…
Community cannot simply be top-down ministry… cannot be program driven… It must also be bottom up… Community must be personally driven…
Without community discipleship doesn’t happen… Jesus’ great commission was to “make disciples”…
To choose Christ and Christianity means the nature of our relationships change… Matthew 10:34-42… it means the loss of our old communities… We as a church must rally around new believers and those that are coming home from years of running…
Our response to those that have lost all this is not to say ‘good luck’ but we must receive them into our lives… we must invite each other into our lives… we must minister to their needs, those of our brothers and sisters…
In order to minister in other people’s lives, we need to be in other people’s lives… and we need to let others into our lives… we must have a community outside of a Sunday morning…
God will honor your love for His community…”