“It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Only look,’ they say, ‘look how they love one another … Look how they are prepared to die for one another.’”

Tertullian

What on earth had Tertullian seen, what on earth was going on during his day?  I think he had seen much more than the clambering after my ministry, the adding of title to my name “pastor”, “apostle”, or as one business card announced handed to me “king, bishop, apostle…” seriously, or attending “church” sitting in rows all facing a band and an expounder.
By the way attending”church” !!!! we cannot mean what we say…the ekklesia is what we are, what we are called not a Sunday attendance or a building but a loving people.

Ok back to the plot, its much more about a people in practical poured out life for one another.  A people that burst forth, erupt with love and care, where compassion  overflows where genuine need is encountered.   Clearly it was yet another description of community…what about our community…

I hear the cry of fatigue within the attending people of God for real relationship, for a family, a community, there will come a time that the cry will erupt outward and energise the rise of community once again.   That in todays environment a church that has become the father and mother to society as community.   It’s coming I tell you, and if it does not then there is no God working toward a declared purpose, but of course we know there is and it’s coming…

It will be heralded as we once again see a View of God that is community, a view of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that make the other more important that themselves, pouring out working for the other.   The Trinitarian view of this Divine Community becoming the dominant pattern to emulate.   The pattern to give form to church, leadership, people.   For far too long it has been a top down expression we have seen, but it is exploding,  a RELATIONAL MOVEMENT is here.   An emphasis on the model of community seen in the Covenant movement of God and we the disciples of Christ are to be the exact expression, the mirror of the union to creation.

It will all happen as we are captured again and put down a biblical pattern, realising the Divine union we have been born to, think it through as you do you will see that many organisational patterns, strategies have lost their theological, their biblical basis. Let em say struct we do require but one that enables and true reflection of a God way not best business or growth pattern. Peopel at Centre, Christ at centre a family a community as the community of God. As we discover the truth of “How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity … for there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forever more” (Psalm 133:1).

We will move from a lost expression of fellowship that has been hijacked, to meaning little more that acquaintances or a religion, to an understanding of a deep koinonia.   Not crowds but a relationship that is speaking as honestly as I can, seeing people as essential to my life, seeing we are so deeply connected, community walking covenant mirroring the flow of relationship of God.    The family of God becomes a priority, in this relationship realising that I had been given a God gift a divine lack, a gap that only another can provide, “as every joint supplies”.    Understanding  that my maturity is dependent, radically on your part that flows to me, radical. On some one else willingness to flow towards me and my willingness to flow towards them in their maturity.
Are you not tired of having to defend a ‘church pattern’ what ever pattern it may be, or one who felt the need to defend as you felt gathering was threat to the authority of the pulpit (or music stand, as the case may be) rather than it was all meant to be community, meant to express community, a family of God)

So many who attend church have dominant feelings of loneliness, humiliation and confusion with this becoming the dominant feeling.   But we are the community of God, how can this be?   A Relational Movement, how can this be, personally I have set my direction to become part of this Relational Movement,  connecting with others that long for this in the place they live ‘Family Christianity’, knowing that has always been Gods purpose and direction to have Family.

A family that are called to live by the gospel, ministries of Christ, leadership that enjoy a family rather that comparison pressure or projecting some other image that they are not, or power of project or name dropping or having to be at the right conference.   A family among all God s people that is caring and loving that the society around says “my, how they love one another”

What about finding a relationship that is always redemptive, redemptive love constantly.   Not judgement or a sudo-judgement when they use other words and say the do not judge, but don’t you feel it in the underling superiority.    A place where when you lose your direction or the inner song of God and are ready to give up, when you are broken you find a community that does not cast you aside, or think less of you, or distance quietly affirm you for some unspoken agenda.     In a community that never utter a criticism or even thought of one but a redemptive love in action..

This Christ Community, this Relational Movement is distinctive, it is  what enables us here to reflect the movement with in GOD?    I trust in reading you are inspired to discover a Relational Movement, a community to belong to.   As you read this blog may a shout of yes I see it, yes I long for it, this mirror of how GOD flows and make the other more important.   There is a drawing to find this Community.    Ponder it next time we will consider why this is distinctive to our world.????