community is

the topic of the message at cornerstone this week was prayer. Specifically about Luke 11 where the disciples ask Jesus how they should pray. Of course Jesus responds with the Lord's Prayer, a prayer that is universally accepted and quite often said without thinking too much about it's application.

Ron made an obersation about the prayer that has me thinking about prayer and it's application in a community sense. The observation was that there are no first person personal pronuns found in the prayer. That's right, the prayer does not outline what we as "personal prayers" should seek to acomplish. Rather, it shows us how we, as a community should pray. Now we are all capable of reading the prayer. And I know the words are familiar to you but here they are in the NIV (from Biblegateway):

2He said to them, "When you pray, say:
" 'Father,[a]
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come.[b]
3Give us each day our daily bread.
4Forgive us our sins,
for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.[c]
And lead us not into temptation

So a community of prayer we must be. But lets start our prayer meeting with a prayer for the community, using the Lord's Prayer as a guideline. Then, after we have prayed for those in our community, and around our community we can pray for our specific needs.

Posted by Bigsun at 3:58 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

Follow this link for a great article about a local church plant on Kent Island MD called The Bridge and their recent visit by a group of musicians from the University of Mobile. We considered joining this church, and in fact were present for most of their pre-plant meetings. However, we felt God was calling is to a different place, and I am confident there is truth in that. Since their plant "The Bridge" has flourished. In fact the Bridge-Blitz which is detailed in the article has seen 25 new faces start to attend thier church. That is amazing.

One of the most interesting, and gutsy examples of community they offer is their Waterman's Ministry. Basically they have several members of their congregation that meet Chesapeake Bay waterman when departing the docks for a day on the bay and pray with them. In the picture found in the article is my friend Bill. Bill may have the most amazing testimony I have ever heard.

Posted by Bigsun at 11:23 AM | Permalink | | links to this post

I have read Steve Taylor's blog for a few years now, and for lack of a better term I have been a bit confused by most of what he says. I always attributed that to my own lack of knowledge about emergent church concepts, and still that is the most likely explaination for my misunderstanding of the emergent kiwi. However this post makes complete sense. Especially in the context of our study of community.

How little faith I have, but expect to be able to serve. Thanks Steve.

Posted by Bigsun at 3:39 PM | Permalink | | links to this post

So we wrapped the 40-Days of Community last Thurs evening. I wasn't overly impressed with Rick Warren. However, with that said, I experienced an enormously huge amount of healing the past few weeks. My experience has brought closure to some aspect of my life that until now had been left open.

It is amazing what being in the presence of those you trust can do for you. Although, I knew each of the members of the group very well, we have done life together for many years.

I am going to change the name of this blog, and in a way I am going to phase out of BIGSUN, which is an icon of who I used to be. I am different now, but not in a cheesy contrived way because I participated in this 40 day process hosted by Rick Warren. Rather, I am not the christian I was, I do not trust the way I once did, I have not nearly the furvor I had once had for involving my life around serving the church. My heart is hardend. But.... I am better off, I have learned to say no. And I have realized the power of being in the presence of friends. And when you get down to it, I doubt if the first apostles could have endured the hardships in life they felt without the support and trust of the others. And that is the biggest lesson learned.

Posted by Bigsun at 8:32 PM | Permalink | | links to this post