He counts the stars and assigns each a name. Psalm 147:4
Cut off a starfish's leg, and not only does the starfish not die, but it grows a new leg; and the cut off piece grows into a new starfish! The Church on mission is like a community of starfish — decentralized, multiplying, resilient, growing, going, inhabiting. Each follower of Jesus carries ‘the DNA’ of the Kingdom and the capacity to be multiplying disciple! Starfish Community is all about sending, encouraging, equipping and developing (S.E.E.D.ing) one another with the competencies, character and content for being and doing just that!
Why? To Send, Equip, Encourage and Develop (SEED) Kingdom leaders/missionaries and communities in neighbourhoods.... on God’s mission
What? A practical, experiential and participatory gathering of those committed to becoming more like Jesus as His Sent Ones....
When? First and Third Sunday Evenings at the Ministry Centre, 3935 114 Street
How? By eating together, and SEEDing each other with missional or disciple-making disciples’ postures and practices.
In his book, Community, Peter Block writes about the kind of life that brings life and transformation to neighborhoods. He writes, “The small group is the unit of transformation and the container for the experience of belonging.” This transformation is both personal and societal. He makes the point quite strongly throughout his book that “authentic transformation does not occur by focusing on changing individuals” but creating environments where small groups of people can generate an alternative future for the social fabric of a neighborhood. To put it in the language of Jesus, the Kingdom of God comes through a group of people who are willing to embody the good news and manifest that good news in the everyday life of local neighborhoods. Scott Boren
Scripture Sit
What strikes you about these passages? What might God be saying to us through them?
Jesus dwells among....
And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. John 1:14
Once Jesus was asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered, “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; 21nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is among you.” Luke 17:20-21
And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them... Revelation 21:3
God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 1 John 4:9
For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them- Jesus Matthew 18:20
Those who follow Him, practice “AMONG” ness too....
But thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. 15For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; 16to the one a fragrance from death to death, to the other a fragrance from life to life. Who is sufficient for these things? 17For we are not peddlers of God’s word like so many; but in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence. 2 Cor.2:14-17
For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will live in them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2 Corinthians 6:16
Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge. 1 Peter 2:12
As for human praise, we have never sought it from you or anyone else. As apostles of Christ we certainly had a right to make some demands of you, but instead we were like children among you. Or we were like a mother feeding and caring for her own children. 8We loved you so much that we shared with you not only God’s Good News but our own lives, too. Don’t you remember, dear brothers and sisters, how hard we worked among you? –Night and day we toiled to earn a living so that we would not be a burden to any of you as we preached God’s Good News to you. 10You yourselves are our witnesses—and so is God—that we were devout and honest and faultless toward all of you believers. 11And you know that we treated each of you as a father treats his own children. 12We pleaded with you, encouraged you, and urged you to live your lives in a way that God would consider worthy. For he called you to share in his Kingdom and glory. 1 Thess. 2:6-12
When God called Israel to be a “light” he was not challenging them to send missionaries throughout the world to set up churches. He was sending them on mission as a people into the world to live in his way. As they lived his way, this people would be a light... Scott Boren
What does it look like for us to live among?
What postures and practices embody it?
What might discredit or undermine it?
Tim Keller quotes (p.85) Lesslie Newbigin:
The Gospel does not become public truth for a society by being propagated as a theory or as a world view and certainly not as a religion. It can become public truth only insofar as it is embodied in a society (the church) which is both ‘abiding in’ Christ and engaged in the life of the world.
Scripture Sit
Read the passages aloud, slowly, thoughtfully... underline words, phrases that catch your attention.
Pause quietly and ponder... linger.... meditate...’sit in the text’.
Share what you pondered in the form of a question, comment or ‘wondering’ statement...
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vine grower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become my disciples. As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. John 15:1-11
Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you. If what you heard from the beginning abides in you, then you will abide in the Son and in the Father... 28And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he is revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame before him at his coming. 1 John 2:24, 28
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. 15God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world. 18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 1 John 4:13-19
So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you. – Romans 12:1-2 MSG
“Abiding in” points to the relationship of mutual indwelling of the Father, the Son and the believer.
DICTIONARY OF JESUS AND THE GOSPELS Editors: Joel B. Green & Scot McKnight IVP
“For this is the secret: Christ lives in you.” Colossians 1:27 (NLT)
For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one at the table? But I am among you as one who serves... 37For I tell you, this scripture must be fulfilled in me, ‘And he was counted among the lawless’; and indeed what is written about me is being fulfilled.” Luke 22:27, 37
By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, “I abide in him,” ought to walk just as he walked. 1 John 2:5b-6
How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? 18Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action....
24All who obey his commandments abide in him, and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us. 1 John 3:17-18, 24
Scripture Sit
Jeremiah 29:4-7 (NRSV)
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
Roxburgh writes: These are a people who assumed God would act in certain ways and history would have an outcome that supported their reading of reality. All of that had been shattered by the destruction of Jerusalem and the first temple. Jeremiah’s letter instructs the exiles to stop seeking a return to Jerusalem. They are given strange, hugely counterintuitive instructions that would have made little sense to Jewish people- they were to settle into the city of Babylon (its name means ‘the gate of the gods’ implying that this city is the place in all the earth where the gods- of the other-come down; one can only imagine the shock of this city on the exiles).
Jeremiah’s letter suggests that the only way for these exiles to rediscover their identity as God’s people is by dwelling in the very place where they imagined God could never be. This is a stunning reversal of their language house. Nothing could have prepared them for these instructions. Yet there it was- a word from the Lord telling them to embrace and enter this city they had learned to despise.
Missional- Joining God in the Neighbourhood p.135
To be on mission means that we enter into our communities with our whole lives before God, not just the part we take with us when we want to evangelize people. In addition, when we engage our neighborhoods and share Jesus’ life with those who don’t follow Jesus, the communication is never one way. This is not an ‘us-them’ proposition, where those inside the church have all the answers for those outside of it. Scott Boren
“If you love me, obey me; and I will ask the Father and he will give you another Comforter, and he will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, for it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, for he lives with you now and some day shall be in you. John 14:15-17 (TLB)
Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; 35for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Matthew 25:34-36
Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. 1 John 3:18