The Journey to Community: The Journey to Community began for the children of God a long, long time ago, when God created humankind, so that God might be in relationship, in community. As image-bearers of the most high God ever since, the children of God have also sought out community. At Covenant Church, we accept the call to be community to one another and to all the children of God very seriously, and very enthusiastically. The Journey to Community is not a side issue. It is integral to whom God truly calls us to be. As with every dimension of our three fold journey, we have not arrived. We have a long way to go, but the Journey to Community is indispensable to our being as a faith community.
What is the Journey to Community? Christian community is a call to live out relationships with authenticity. If we share a faith community, does our presence therein transcend merely knowing each other? Do we truly love and care for each other? For example, does anyone from the youth group really know, love, and embrace someone they might consider a senior citizen, and vice versa? What does Christian community look like for different generations? How important is it to do ministry intergenerationally? Or what about our socioeconomic differences, our racial differences? The Journey to Community calls us to overcome every barrier that might exist within our faith community, and to do so with gratitude and joy for the adventure that exists in consistently challenging our comfort zones in the context of a diverse faith community and neighborhood.
But the call extends much further than we can comprehend. We are called to build and nurture community with our neighborhood, and the unchurched in our lives. We believe that one of the very secrets to loving our world is to pray for and seek out genuine community ecumenically and with those of other faiths. The potential understanding therein may contain the secret to a future world where peace will be the norm, not he exception.
A primary catalyst for the Journey to Community is the Covenant Hospitality Ministry Group. Their mission statement is a call to each Covenant member to seek and embrace community in every situation.
Covenant Community Church, RCA, is a fellowship of people and is called by God, empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the very presence of Jesus Christ in the world. Our ministry is to create a community of hospitality. We do this by teaching, encouraging, and resourcing both individually and corporately.
The Journey to Community must be woven into the fabric of our Journey Inward. For example, if you are worshiping at Covenant for the first time, do you feel that your presence was profoundly important to everyone in attendance? Did anyone do anything to communicate the importance of your presence? Or, what if you are worshiping at Covenant for the 1001st time. The same questions apply!
We have found that literally every neighborhood ministry we do is based on the Journey to Community. They all must embrace hospitality as a foundation for their reason for being. What would our Hygiene Pantry be without hospitality? Or Summer Recreation? Or tutoring? Or Supper House? What would Barney Maffetts be without a primary focus on hospitality? The Journey to Community must also be woven into the fabric of the Journey Outward.
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