What if Christians took the life of Christ seriously and actually tried to follow through on his commands
What if Christians looked at the Beatitudes and instead of seeing them as nice little sayings took them to heart and tried to live them out because they wanted to be a blessing?
What if we stopped being satisfied with the status quo that is our faith, our lives, our society and were determined to strive for something better, something deeper…something that had actual meaning?
Over nine years ago on September 11th there was a horrible act that changed how we looked at the world, how we acted, and how we do things. You look at that one horrific act and you see the aftershocks throughout our society. How nine years later that one day is burned in our memories still influencing our world.
One single act spreading terror across the world. Creating Fear, hopelessness, and paranoia.
What if we did the opposite?
What if we gathered together in groups and planned seemingly random, surprise acts of hope?
What if we gathered together encouraging each other to live our lives looking for opportunities to serve others, to lighten their burdens, to be Christ to them?
What if we gathered together sharing the needs in our own lives and in the lives of people we encountered and came up with ways to help?
What would happen if we did everything we could to spread hope in this dark world; to fight against this terror?
What would happen to our communities, our cities, our countries, our churches?
I firmly believe that many of our friends, our coworkers, heck even ourselves, are living without hope. Stuck in a day in day out rut of a mundane life struggling just to get by – financially, emotionally, spiritually – and need help to escape. We all need a sense of hope, but we’ve shut ourselves off so much from those around us that we are all afraid to ask for help…and even more to give it. We need community. No one person can do it on their own, deep down we all know that, but are afraid to be vulnerable and open so keep others at a safe distance while at the same time creating a multitude of shallow relationships to try and keep us distracted from dealing with our own hurt and problems as well as the problems of those around us. People have hundreds upon hundreds of friends on facebook – but barely any real honest connections. There is a deficit of genuine human community out there and people are looking for a place where they can just be themselves. A place where they can belong.
Someone should do something about this.
I’m sick of this shallow living. Of a depressing world, stunted faith, of living a Christian twist on the so-called American dream – I want to inspire and be inspired, to be joyful and bring joy. I want to remember hope.
So here I am asking the question….What if? What would happen?
To be honest I have no clue where this is going to lead me. To be honest, it scares me – so much so that I’ve been putting off writing this for months….heck, I wrote this weeks ago (well other than this sentence obviously) and am just posting it now When I look at myself I feel completely unqualified but the more I try to ignore this the more it comes back up. I can’t stop thing that someone should do something about this, that I should do something about this. I can’t stop asking the question – what if, only if…and the only way I can get the answer is by experimenting. Experimenting with hope. Going out there and doing something and seeing what happens.
What would happen if we started this. A small group of us who long to create community. Who as Acts 2 states devote themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Who give to those who were in need – even if it means sacrifice, who communicate and connect daily realizing church can’t just be done once a week, who eat together full of joy praising God for his blessings. A community who explore the story of Jesus together – laughing, loving and crying as we learn and actually act out what it means to be like Christ. A community whose defining characteristic as seen by others is Love.
Where we come together openly to share the stresses of live and our brokenness in order to receive love, support and hope. Diving deeper into each others lives – because when we’re honest with ourselves, we’re a mess…I know I am – and we need each other to help us get back on track.
Not a new way of doing church, but a new way of doing life.
So I guess this is where you come in. I do firmly believe that this is something I can’t do by myself, something if I tried to I’d fall flat on my face. Not to mention, community by yourself isn’t really community. So I’m trying to find people who are fully committed to meet together regularly to seek what it means to live the life of Jesus, to spread the message of hope. To be radically inventive, hopelessly creative, and joyfully seeking. To create a community where it is not only safe to ask the tough questions but it is encouraged. Where we challenge each other to think differently, feel differently and most important life differently – striving to be an irrefutable example of God’s love to those around us as we pursue Him and the dreams and passions he’s put on our lives.
I can’t promise it’ll be simple, it’ll be easy – heck it’ll probably be hard and stressful. But it’ll be worth it. This is not for everyone, especially in the early stages as we envision what this will look like. I’m looking for those who this rings true; who have this same yearning, longing and ache in their heart for something new, something different.
Something Real
Where this will take us, I have no clue. Same in regards to what this will look like. All I know is that I have to try and I won’t be satisfied until I do. And besides, we could all use a little bit more adventure in our lives.
So I’m asking you, please take time to pray and ask God if he wants you to join in this experiment. This experiment of hope. The Elpis Experiment.
Elpis – Greek for Hope.
