re:group Session 1: Living in the Rhythm of Love
This past Saturday, I took part in something called re:group, which was essentially a day of learning and sharing for those involved in the community groups ministry at North Point Community Church.
I have more notes, insights, and takeaways than I can share in one post, so I’m planning to break this into several posts over the next few days…
One huge plus was the opportunity to hear Scot McKnight, author of The Jesus Creed, who led two separate sessions on what it means to live a missional life.
In the first session, Dr. McKnight spoke of the need for us to recapture the sacred spiritual rhythm of Jews in Jesus’ day, who began and ended their day with a recitation of the Shema from Deuteronomy 6. More specifically, McKnight calls upon Christians to recite The Jesus Creed, aka Jesus’s own unique formulation (combining the Shema and the call from Leviticus 19:18 to love your neighbor as yourself), which is found in Mark 12:29-31:
Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.
Seems simple enough. Loving God and loving others. But reciting it and actually living it are two very different things…
For as McKnight notes, loving God and others is not simply a duty to perform, it’s a life to live. And living this way can prove to be dangerous for your moral life, as it presents a challenge in every relationship you have.
Take Jesus for example. Although he himself was morally perfect, he often hung out with folks whose moral standing was questionable at best. And while sharing table fellowship alone with such folks would have been scandalous enough, he went beyond this to go into the homes of “sinners,” literally gracing them with his presence.
So while the moral person says, “If you’re clean, eat with us,” Jesus says, “Eat with me and I’ll make you clean.”
Pretty powerful contrast, don’t you think?
More posts to follow. But for now I’ll end with a couple of questions:
Which do you value more — living in a loving way, or living in a morally pure way? How do you stay in rhythm with God?
No TweetBacks yet. (Be the first to Tweet this post)
ouch I’m pretty sure that one cut me deep. thanks
glad you had a great time at regroup! thanks for sharing your thoughts.
dang I can't stop thinking about this post - morality/love seems to be a theme running across so many of my blogs & blog friends the past week.
I'm just torn — because I know that the greatest commandment is to love God. and the ways I do that most are to spend time with Him, figure out ways to listen to Him more/better, spend time in His word…. and out of gratitude live my life in a pure & moral way to glorify Him and the transformation available through Him….
so really loving God which is the first commandment does show itself sometimes in a morally pure life.
the commandment that is purposely not first, but 2nd is to love others as we love ourselves.
never should we ever break the 2nd commandment as we live out the first… but very clearly when we are following Him at our closest times, we will be living morally pure lives and influencing others - rather than being influenced.
It seems so many groups live in these extremes. either focusing only on loving God through time with Him, allowing the spirit to transform them and forget the 2nd commandment…. and others focus only on the 2nd commandment and missing out on Truth, on the work of the Spirit, figuring out God's will, and getting off track so frequently.
I just tend to always be in that middle ground. I guess because I know so little about all the different church movements, theology, etc. etc…. since I'm new to the scene.
anyway - am I just rambling or what?
thanks for letting me ramble
-john — thanks for stopping by, and for your comments.
-randi jo — this cuts me deep as well. So feel free to ramble, ask questions, etc., because it’s good for me and anyone else who happens upon this blog
It’s easy to say we love God and others, but living it is much harder. Temptation is to isolate ourselves from those who make us uncomfortable — set up shop, proclaim what we believe, then invite anyone who agrees to our terms to come.
Problem here is that approach isn’t proving to be terribly effective anymore — nor does it match up with the way Jesus lived — meeting people where they are — having such a close connection with his Father that he brought light to dark places, and wasn’t compromised by putting himself in compromising situations…
Again — much easier said than done. Incidentally — I’m not against morality/purity — in fact, I think it takes a higher standard — a morality/purity emanating from the inside out that results from our connection to and love for God — to live out the the second command of loving others. Not conforming to an ungodly standard, but allowing ourselves to be changed and transformed as we reach out to others in love…