Spirutal Community: Let Love Rule.

Rummaging through some unpacked boxes looking for a Thomas Merton book, I stumbled upon a book entitled, I Surrender: Submitting the Details of Your Life to Christ. I devoured this book nearly 15 years ago. I recall sipping hot coffee early in the morning prior to going into the office and reading this book while journaling what was happening in my soul. Although the author was evangelical and my theology has expanded, it was exactly what I need at the time and it was a great lesson on truly submitting the details of my life to God.

So I opened the book and found something that I had written in black ink on a piece of white folded notebook paper nearly 10 years ago. One afternoon while living in Charlotte my wife and I were packing boxes and talking, she asked me to quickly jot down what my vision was for a spiritual community, she wanted to know what would be some of the major themes? This is what I wrote in about 60 seconds back then and found stuffed between the pages of the book today:

1. Who you are as a beloved child of God.
2. What Jesus Christ means for humanity.
3. Knowing God as a Loving Presence.
4. Base all interaction from a perspective of love.
5. Preach “free” love and/or loving freely. (It’s what I wrote)
6. Love all. Come one, come all.
7. Hands and feet of Christ in a broken world.
8. All brokenness comes from a spiritual foundation.
9. God can be trusted to be God.

Early this morning I read a quote by Nathaniel Brandon that said, “The greatest barrier to love is the secret fear that we are unlovable.”

Linking this quote to what I had written 10 years ago, what would this mean for spiritual communities?

I think that I had a vision for (church) community that helped people discover who they were by disclosing who we are at our deepest levels—loved children of God. God came to humanity, not because humanity was so bad and sinful but because God is love. It seems that far too many folks are walking around wounded by a message of how unlovable they are-- sadly, many religions have only added to this philosophy—and every time one has a struggle in life he/she harshly judge oneself based on one's performance standards rather than God’s love.

What would you add to the list for spirutal community?