A2J Fellowship weekly note!

Greetings friends, 

I hope this weekly note finds you doing well.  I wanted to share with you the good news that I personally am experiencing God's renewal in my life and I want to thank each of you for your friendship!  I am sharing a reflection below that communicates some of the foundational understandings of A2J.  Would love any feedback. This first reflection is on the view that Community is to be a Sign

Community is to be a Sign

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“I have never lost the intuition that community life could be a sign that God is love. Gradually the conviction took hold of me that it was essential to create a community determined to give their whole life, a community where kindheartedness and simplicity would be at the center of everything.”      -Brother Roger

Community, in its shared life together, is called to embody an alternative way of life that stands as a sign of God’s redemptive purposes in the world.  Robert Webber puts it this way, “The church’s mission is to be the presence of the kingdom and to show the world what it looks like when a community of people live under the reign of God.”  We believe Christian community is to be the gospel in motion, where we embody the gospel story through our public and consistent shared life, bearing witness to the truth of this story.  Christians following Jesus and living together can demonstrate to the world what the good and beautiful life, portrayed in the Sermon on the Mount, can look like.

In our A2J journey we have experienced seasons where we focused on “service” that was motivated more from a need to justify our sense of worth and we have had other times where “service” was a simple overflow from the love of God.  I think we have been at our best and most fruitful when we have simply kept Jesus at the center of our community life and taken seriously his call to love one another extravagantly.  This naturally creates life that is both refreshing and attractive and draws those around us to Jesus.  Francis Schaeffer, the founder of the Labri Communities poignantly states, "Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful—Christian community is the final apologetic."

  

"We do not have to be saviors of the world!  We are simply human beings, enfolded in weakness and in hope, called together in community to change our world one heart at a time."   -Jean Vanier

We will be praying at the Woodland Garden Friday morning 7:30-8ish you are warmly invited to join us!

one minute promo video for Saturday!

This Saturday we hope you will attend the John 17 Event, if you cannot please pray for us.  

Finally I have written a recent reflection on unity and reconciliation and would love any feedback.  click here

your friend,

Ryan

friend and follower of Jesus