Growing Journey Together

This past Sunday we welcomed new members into our community. Here’s what the liturgy read: “It is our hope as a congregation to live with one another and grow in God’s love, grace and embrace together witnessing to the community.  It is also our hope that God would move in the lives of those searching for a place, a community where they too can grow in God, fellowship and service.  I present these people to formally join our congregation and the mission we share as we experience God through one another and the world.” Do you remember such a time that you prayed and sought out a community to experience a place, a home, others to journey in life with?

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There’s a lot in the liturgy (work of the people) I just shared above. It states our purpose as a community: to live with one another and grow in God’s love, grace, and embrace as we witness to the community (around us). And yet God has others to enfold within our lives as well. Some of you have moved; and some of you have never moved. Yet what each of us searches for in life is a place of being, a place of purpose!  In receiving new members, we recognize that this is a formal welcome.  They have been with us already.   What we do is recognize the place they have found with us as we seek to grow in God… as we witness to the community.

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Then I asked them, and you the congregation, the same basic question: “Do you desire to join in a shared life; to worship, love, and pray together as we all strive to grow closer to God through study of Scripture, fellowship, and service?”  What we prayerfully enter into when formally welcoming others into our congregation is to continue journeying with us as we ‘grow in God… together as we witness to the community (around us).  We do this through study of scripture, fellowship, and service.  Does that mean that our community is ‘perfect?’

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No! Rather, we are people who are practicing our life trying to grow closer to God and others; hence we are a community of believers, a congregation centered around Jesus Christ as we see Him in each other and the community that surrounds us.  Each of us at one time or another will stumble over words; wrestle with how radical God’s love, grace, and embrace are; and how we can share the Gospel in word and deed with our surrounding community.

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I invite each of you then to consider: how you are growing in God through study of Scripture, fellowship, and service?  What does that look like for you? And now consider: is there someone I know that might find a place with me along that journey of growing in God?  And now let’s multiply that by each family unit here within our midst.  What would it look like to invite more people to the table to experience a journey of growing in God, even if we stumble and fumble a little?  Because in God’s house there is always plenty of room for us to journey more as we can “strengthen the bonds we are forging in our relationships so that we may journey together in praising and serving you as we grow in experiencing God’s presence throughout our lives.”