Community
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“Signs of Life” as we experience the Coronavirus outbreak.
We have been created in the image of God who is a Trinity of Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. How has the Coronavirus outbreak awakened you to the interdependence of humankind? Pray your gratitude for the people to whom you are connected. Pray for God’s company for those who are alone, are lost, are imprisoned, who otherwise feel forgotten.
In this video, The Rev. Becky Zartman is in conversation with Brs. Luke Ditewig, David Vryhof, Jonathan Maury and Nicholas Bartoli to discuss Community.
Questions for Meditation:
Life in community requires a commitment to being fully present with others. Consider your interactions: How well do you listen? What distractions interfere?
God calls us to community for the sake of conversion: our own conversion, the conversion of others, and the transformation of our world. Who is your community, and how are you being transformed?
Practice:
- When you spend time with other people this week, be fully present with them, putting away distractions...and asking them to do the same.
Facilitator Support
The learning goals for Community are:
- Connecting the sign of community to personal spirituality or experience
- Understanding how community plays a role in Christian worship and community life
- Learning a new contemplative practice that can help participants connect more deeply to the sign of community
Community: Small Group Guide
A detailed outline for leading a Small Group on Community, with notes, questions and tips on set up.
Community: Forum Curriculum
Preparation and guidance for using Community in a forum setting.
Downloads and Print outs
Quick links to PDFs for downloading and printing.
Practices to go deeper
We all live under the illusion that we are in need of some major makeover to make us perfect. On this path, the only thing that we’re actually doing is letting our true selves, our identity in Christ, shine forth. If, through this journey, we become aware of the beautiful beings of light in Christ that we are – that all of us are – then being expressions of God’s love in the world just follows naturally.
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Ongoing conversion happens only in community life. We can’t do it for ourselves. I had a college chaplain who was very fond of saying “There are no solo Christians,” and he was absolutely right. Everyone finds their community – or their overlapping communities – that leads to their conversion.
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Community can offer a container that’s safe enough and supportive enough for the conversion process to take place. You have a group of people saying, “You can be who you are, we’ll support that, even if it’s painful, even if it’s uncomfortable.” That allowance helps us confront our own wounds. It helps other people – and ourselves – heal.
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There’s a portion of our Rule of Life that’s been very helpful to me in living in community. It talks about silence as a gift that allows us to recognize and revere the mystery of every person. Each person is a mystery to us, and there are aspects of that person’s life that we will never know, no matter how well we know them. Only God alone can know this person as they truly are. This is a way to open our hearts to greater compassion.
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We don’t do church alone because God isn’t alone. God is community and invites us into community. God chose a family to bless and save the whole world through Abraham. No one person could do it alone. The Christian story, and all of the stories of scripture, are about a people. Our story is one of families and of communities.
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The very nature of the Triune God is community. The Father, Son and Spirit are One in reciprocal self-giving and love. Because human beings are made in the image of a relational God, humans are not meant to be separate and isolated from one another. Rather, we are called to live together in shared community.
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We’re not only a gathered people, we’re also a sent people. Jesus says, “I send you into the world. Just as the Father sent me into the world, I’m sending you.” We need to be sent out from the church building itself – and from the church community itself – to have a wider rippling effect in the world.
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From a conversation with Br. Jonathan Maury, SSJE
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Being in loving relationship means that the truth of our very selves will be revealed. When we have chosen to love, no matter what, there is no place for us to hide from ourselves. We learn that not only do we need to love others for who they are, we need to love ourselves for who we are.
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“Why were these angelic figures everywhere? What were they trying to tell me?”
Br. Jim Woodrum follows the angels toward a deeper appreciation of why our church buildings matter and how they can help us to become one with the angels. This Monastic Wisdom refection accompanies and illuminates our Lent 2020 offering Signs of Life.
Read MoreWorship engages our deepest human needs and has the power to transform our lives. Join the Brothers of SSJE in exploring the signs and symbols at the heart of Christian worship.
This free 5-week offering encourages individuals and groups to explore the riches of our worship traditions, liturgy and sacraments, and the art and architecture of our worship spaces, revealing the full meaning of these signs, deepening our experience of Christian vocation and guiding us toward ongoing conversion.