Uncategorized Murray McLellan on 11 Dec 2008 10:53 am
Core Practices
We have been working on a Grace Fellowship “Core Practices” directive for our Missional Communities. This is not something that is a legalistic checklist, but rather a helpful simplified list that reminds us and pushes us towards the gospel-centered life that should be true of every believer in Christ. What is our call - based on our gospel identity - who we now are in and because of Jesus - our Treasure.
Below you will find what we have so far. I will also try to flesh out the “C” (Commune) in this post as it may need a little clarification. You will also be able to link on a recent post of Mark Driscoll’s on “silence” which is related.
Here is what we have:
Gospel-centered Life on Mission: Making disciples – not consumers.
CORE PRACTICES
“…teaching them to OBEY…” (Matt. 28)
Acts of Gospel Neighbouring – Serving the city as a community of sent ones through free unexpected acts of kindness in the name of Jesus; and caring for the poor.
Bless – 3 times a week (anything from helping someone build a house - to sending a card – to a word of encouragement (1 is to be inside the community of faith, 1 outside the community of faith, and one more).
Commune – Weekly set aside time to commune with God in prayerful silence to reflect and re-orient our lives to Jesus and His mission for us.
Disciple – Connect weekly with another person or two in a DNA group.
· Doctrine – Read a book of the Bible and share what God is teaching you.
· Nurture – Ask accountability questions of one another.
· Apostolic Mission – Pray for the salvation of the lost. Seek to reproduce the DNA – to make disciples.
Eat – 3 times a week (table fellowship with someone inside the community of faith, someone outside the community of faith, and one other) … redeeming the table.
Re-create and Celebrate – As a community, we take time to rest, play, create and restore beauty in ways that reflect God to others (i.e. work on projects together, celebrate together and with our city, vacation together, take retreats together, share hobbies or recreational interests etc.).
This is an ongoing work in progress - as we seek to see what Jesus calls us to in His Word as His “sent ones” in the world.
To help you grasp what we mean by “commune” I have included a link to Mark Driscoll’s blog here as he talks about silence.
We believe that each of us should take some time in a week to be in silence - to commune with God in prayer, reflection, and to evaluate and think and consider our days and weeks and time ahead so that we might re-orient our lives and aim at our called mission of advancing the Kingdom of Jesus and God’s glory in everything. Some people may journal, but all will consider how to redeem the time and “lose our lives” for Christ’s sake - for we are His. We do not want to waste our lives. We want to live with a gospel intentionality and not simply reacting and letting “life” happen to us. We want those around us to know we have been with Jesus (Acts 3:13)!!!
