WMTRBW 34: The Uprising of Fellowship

Our next five weeks of readings from We Make the Road by Walking (technically, I guess, the next six) help us explore what the early church found to be the impact of the resurrection. As Jesus’ followers began to move forward into this new reality that had been created when it was discovered that God had said yes to Jesus’ way in raising him from the dead, what would the fact that Christ is alive mean for them? How would it shape their life together?

As I looked at these chapters, I was amazed first of all by how the things McLaren talks about mirror the five ministry groups that are at the heart of our life together as a congregation. Check it out:

Fellowship--Outreach/Evangelism
Discipleship--Spiritual Formation
Worship--Worship (duh!)
Partnership--Helping
Stewardship--Support

The second thing that amazed me is how much these chapters' themes matched up with the themes of what we said as a congregation is important to us and life-giving to us at Broadneck. I mentioned that I made word clouds of our responses to these questions, and here are our replies. Where do you see the themes of the butterfly above in the word clouds below?

I feel most alive and encouraged at Broadneck when...

 I think the most important thing going on in our congregation right now is...

This is going to be a fun post-Easter journey, and we began this week with fellowship and considering this challenge: who needs to be included in our fellowship? To whom have we been sent? I look forward to these weeks of exploration together!