What does it mean to be a community?
Basically, a community means a society of individuals with shared rights, privileges, interests, and commitments. Every community requires people. And the people in the community must share a sense that their individuality is not an end to itself, but also involves ties to other individuals.
We are constantly struggling with the challenge of becoming part of a community. It's so tempting to define life by individual attributes, values, preferences, privileges, and identities that often community doesn't happen.
But we were created to live in community. We were created for community with the rest of creation. We've been placed in the world for community with other individuals. We're not intended to define community by our sameness, but our "sharedness." We're here to share the air, water, food, energy, wealth, power, and everything else with each other. In other words, we're here to share life with each other as neighbors.
Jesus constantly worked to build community. But he was often criticized for those efforts. Some of his most bitter critics were religious traditionalists. The critics shunned the inclusive idea of community Jesus taught and modeled. He wasn't "conservative" enough. He interacted with people the religious traditionalists considered "unclean." Jesus hung around with poor, sick, disenfranchised, neglected, and shunned people. And he said that how we treat those people is the defining statement of our character, and whether we desire community with God.
Do you think Jesus was right? Or was he "too liberal" for you?
Would that vision of community work in your circle of associates, your family, religious body, political group, or other associations?
And if the Jesus notion of community isn't your cup of tea, what's wrong with it? What's bad about it?
Are you following the example of the religious traditionalists who criticized and shunned Jesus, or are you following the life of community that Jesus demonstrated and taught?
Let's think about this. Let's decide what community means. Let's share our hopes and concerns about creating community. Then let's build community, in every breath and heartbeat, together.
Grace and Peace to you.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Indianapolis
Please remember to pray for the people who've been affected by the stage rigging crash at the Indiana State Fair on last night. The family members and friends of the people who died, who've been injured, who've worked as part of the rescue effort, and everyone else connected with the event are experiencing great pain today. Let's remember them, lovingly, compassionately, and in the spirit of reverent tenderness.
What about changing the name to "Every Breath and Heartbeat"?
What do you think about changing the name of this blog to "Every Breath and Hearbeat"? Let us know by responding on the blog, on our website, or on Facebook. And if you'd like others to join the conversations and journeys pass the word about the blog to them. Remember, we're interesting in producing what God wants in our lives, each other, and the world. Together.
Grace and Peace.
Grace and Peace.
Welcome!
Welcome to Blogging with New Millennium Church of Little Rock. I'm Wendell Griffen and I serve as pastor of the congregation. New Millennium Church are people who praise and worship God together. We proclaim God together. We welcome all persons in God's love together. We live for God, in every breath and heartbeat, by the power of the Holy Spirit as followers of Jesus Christ, together.
We've been together since May 2009 and are people from different walks of life, diverse ethnic backgrounds, and varied levels of education, income, health, and other attributes. And what we share is a conviction that God has us in the world on purpose. We believe, with every breath and heartbeat, that God wants us to live to make the world a place of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice.
So that's what we try to do with ourselves. Everyday. All the time.
We draw our inspiration from the stories and historical accounts about people found in the Hebrew Scriptures (often better known as the "Old" Testament) and those found in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Our highest and most revered inspiration is Jesus, who is called the Christ (meaning Messiah or Anointed).
Jesus is God's highest and best proof to the world about who God is and how God operates concerning the creation and everyone in it.
Jesus is God's highest and best proof to the world about who God wants us to become and why becoming like Jesus matters.
And Jesus shows us what God cares about most and what God deserves from us if we are to produce it for God.
Notice I haven't said anything about what religious tribe New Millennium is part of. That's not an accident.
Across history, people have produced lots of sects, creeds, denominations, religions, empires, and other things in the name of religion. We're pretty good at it by now. But that's not all God put us in the world to do. It's not even what God put us in the world to do.
New Millennium Church is affiliated with two Baptist entities: the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. That's because most of us were nurtured by and in Baptist homes, churches, and religious settings.
But even if we weren't Baptist, we'd still be trying to live for God and following Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even if we weren't Baptists, we'd still think that we've been placed in the world to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice with every breath and heartbeat.
In other words, we're New Millennium Church because we're determined to live for God in every breath and heartbeat as followers of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So while many of us are Baptists, all of us aren't.
Just as some people are male while others are female. Just as people come in various shapes, sizes, genders, sexual orientations, political perspectives, languages, abilities, and other ways of being people. None of those things determine whether, if, or why we choose to live for God or not. The same is true about the religious tribes we hail from or become associated with.
We're New Millennium Church because we're determined to live for God as followers of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to produce lives and a world of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice.
We're committed to do this together with anyone else and everyone else who wants to do it. This blog is an effort in that commitment. We'll use it to exchange thoughts, hopes, and other information about efforts to live for God and make the world what God wants it to become. Please share your thoughts, hopes, and information about efforts you are taking to achieve the same thing.
New Millennium also has a website at http://www.newmillenniumchurch.us/. Visit us on Facebook at "New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas." You'll see photos, learn about congregational efforts and activities, and find manuscripts of sermons that have been proclaimed on the website. You'll find about what we're reading together to become more useful agents of divine grace and truth in the world.
I hope you'll share your journey with us and join the journey we're on to make the world a place of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice. That's the will of God that Jesus taught us to do. That's the heaven on earth we read about in the Lord's Prayer.
That's what we're about today, tomorrow, sometimes stumbling over ourselves, but always mindful that we're here to live for God in every breath and heartbeat as followers of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Together.
Grace and Peace to you!
We've been together since May 2009 and are people from different walks of life, diverse ethnic backgrounds, and varied levels of education, income, health, and other attributes. And what we share is a conviction that God has us in the world on purpose. We believe, with every breath and heartbeat, that God wants us to live to make the world a place of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice.
So that's what we try to do with ourselves. Everyday. All the time.
We draw our inspiration from the stories and historical accounts about people found in the Hebrew Scriptures (often better known as the "Old" Testament) and those found in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Our highest and most revered inspiration is Jesus, who is called the Christ (meaning Messiah or Anointed).
Jesus is God's highest and best proof to the world about who God is and how God operates concerning the creation and everyone in it.
Jesus is God's highest and best proof to the world about who God wants us to become and why becoming like Jesus matters.
And Jesus shows us what God cares about most and what God deserves from us if we are to produce it for God.
Notice I haven't said anything about what religious tribe New Millennium is part of. That's not an accident.
Across history, people have produced lots of sects, creeds, denominations, religions, empires, and other things in the name of religion. We're pretty good at it by now. But that's not all God put us in the world to do. It's not even what God put us in the world to do.
New Millennium Church is affiliated with two Baptist entities: the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the National Baptist Convention USA, Inc. That's because most of us were nurtured by and in Baptist homes, churches, and religious settings.
But even if we weren't Baptist, we'd still be trying to live for God and following Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Even if we weren't Baptists, we'd still think that we've been placed in the world to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice with every breath and heartbeat.
In other words, we're New Millennium Church because we're determined to live for God in every breath and heartbeat as followers of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So while many of us are Baptists, all of us aren't.
Just as some people are male while others are female. Just as people come in various shapes, sizes, genders, sexual orientations, political perspectives, languages, abilities, and other ways of being people. None of those things determine whether, if, or why we choose to live for God or not. The same is true about the religious tribes we hail from or become associated with.
We're New Millennium Church because we're determined to live for God as followers of Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to produce lives and a world of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice.
We're committed to do this together with anyone else and everyone else who wants to do it. This blog is an effort in that commitment. We'll use it to exchange thoughts, hopes, and other information about efforts to live for God and make the world what God wants it to become. Please share your thoughts, hopes, and information about efforts you are taking to achieve the same thing.
New Millennium also has a website at http://www.newmillenniumchurch.us/. Visit us on Facebook at "New Millennium Church, Little Rock, Arkansas." You'll see photos, learn about congregational efforts and activities, and find manuscripts of sermons that have been proclaimed on the website. You'll find about what we're reading together to become more useful agents of divine grace and truth in the world.
I hope you'll share your journey with us and join the journey we're on to make the world a place of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, truth, and justice. That's the will of God that Jesus taught us to do. That's the heaven on earth we read about in the Lord's Prayer.
That's what we're about today, tomorrow, sometimes stumbling over ourselves, but always mindful that we're here to live for God in every breath and heartbeat as followers of Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Together.
Grace and Peace to you!
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