Practices

The church is a community of practices that joins people together under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Practices are embodied exercises people do together that work in some way to achieve a common purpose. When Christians join together in practices centered on Jesus Christ, the result is a shared way of life made possible through Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension. To help stir the imagination and shape the formation of our Table Communities, we offer Seven Practices of the church in our context. Incorporating these practices in our lives within the Three Circles, helps to put Jesus at the center of our shared lives.
            While the Seven Practices desire much more description and story telling to adequately explain, I will only briefly describe each practice and how it helps us to live into the Lordship of Jesus. The Seven Practices are: story, ordinary life, prayer, the table, patience, celebration, and shalom.

We intentionally seek to grow in our understanding of God’s unfolding story as we also learn our own story. Additionally, we seek to hear the stories of those around us and the place we live.

Because God is always present and at work, we seek to tend to His presence in all of life, not just the highs and lows. In the mundane. Jesus is alongside us, before us, and with us shaping us into the kind of people who live lives of incredible meaning without the need for recognition and acclaim. Life in the kingdom of God matters because of what that life shows to be true about Jesus.

The primary work of God’s people is prayer. We seek communion with God and others through intentional practices of prayer individually and collectively. We follow the example Jesus gave in prayer and seek to lead by a desire for the kingdom (Matt 5-7)

We are shaped by the Eucharist (the Lord’s Table) and extend the presence of Christ eucharistically to the tables of our home and throughout our city. Jesus is at the center of our meals and meals are central to our lives.

We live within the slow movement of God’s transformation. Many worldly influences beckon us to strive to be, do, and have more, often leading people to using violence in order to secure what they desire. We believe Jesus leads us into another way, a way of following and patience. We seek to cultivate patience as a virtue, learning to wait on God. In this we not only subvert performance-driven notions through presence with God, ourselves, and others, we also cultivate a non-controlling, non-coercive, and ultimately nonviolent way of life.

The presence of Jesus in the world shapes us into people who have hope and reason to celebrate. Celebration within our fragmented world is not avoidance, rather it is hope in Jesus’ words, “I have said this to you so that in me you may have peace. In the world you face persecution, but take courage: I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33) Celebration is active resistance against the forces of despair. Therefore, we can follow Jesus and practice “bringing the better wine” into the spaces of relationship we inhabit (John 2).

The end is flourishing. In the power of Christ, we move to the margins as we embody habits to bring peace, reconciliation, justice, and healing in our relationships and neighborhood through Jesus Christ.