Last night, my house church community, the SouthSide New Life Team, met as a whole for the first time this school year. You may recall that our church has deemed this year The Year of Freedom, claiming the promises of Isaiah 49:8-21. As a New Life Team, we enjoy forming our own sub-vision; the unique way we will uphold and realize the vision of our church. Our SouthSide vision was shared last night.
As a community, we are claiming the image and function of a macrophage to be an embodiment of what we want to do this year (It’s nerdy, I know; but remember this is the Univeristy of Michigan, people). I’m the furthest thing from a biologist, and I realize that any image or metaphor breaks down at some point, and this one is no exception. But my very base understanding of a macrophage is that it is a glob-like organism that moves to engulf nearby lone particles as it responds to chemical signals in its immediate environment. Those particles then become an irrevocable part of the macrophage (though there is a digestion of sorts, which is where the metaphor breaks down…pun intended). Our New Life Team wants to be this to our residence hall. We want to repond to the prompting signals of the Spirit to move toward the lone person in our environment to invite and (if they’re seeking), integrate that person completely into who we are as a unit and community. Because Jesus sought out and cared for the loner (Matthew 18:12-14).
Because “Macrophages for Jesus” doesn’t make for the most relevant of vision statements, we decided on:
Knit Together, Knitting In
I think that’s a slightly more effective phrasing of this concept of complete unity and intentional outreach and integration. To actively knit ourselves together, we meet as a community for 30 minutes on Tuesday and Wednesday nights to pray or read the Word together, in addition to our weekly small groups. Thursday nights we meet to share our lives, learn ministry skills, or absorb teaching.
To be actively knitting others in, each member of our community has committed to spending one meal a week eating with someone sitting alone in the cafeteria. The goal is to listen and know their lives, and help them taste the freedom of Christ through encouragement and love. Our prayer is not only that they might come to believe in the God who notices and pursues them through our own pursuit, but that we too might come to understand how our God takes notice of and pursues us. In addition, we’re always inviting new friends to Sunday services, small groups, and fun things we put together on weekends. And then we’re inviting those who come to our Tuesday-Thursday gatherings as well. We’re pretty big on the Acts 2 model of meeting together daily. It’s quite easy when you all live in the same building (thank the Lord for 1200-student dorms).
To actively pursue a year of freedom, each saint in our community has a semester-long faith goal to:
Develop a truly feedom-giving relationship with one person they don’t currently know.
If each person in our New Life team were to end the semester and, with full conviction, assert that they’ve developed a deeply freedom-giving relationship with someone they didn’t know at the beginning of the school year, I have a hard time forseeing how we wouldn’t have accomplished the things we now dream of. I believe this goal, combined with a culture that is constantly knitting in, has the power to transform an entire campus. To my team: I have complete faith in the God who is at work so powerfully within you. May all your dreams come true this semester.
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Mikey, this is David from OC. I really like those goals. It has always been a struggle for me to make impactful goals for my small groups that are not too ambitious. I think these goals of meeting twice for half an hour outside of small group, eating one meal a week with someone they don’t know and making one freedom-giving relationship with someone are very attainable. I like it!