A Jesus-Centered Community
From Practice to Faith
As if for emphasis, rain poured down in sheets on the thirty-some people standing waist-deep and teeth-chattering in Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey on a stale-colored October afternoon. As they took confessions and baptized each other, the only thing that wasn’t damp was their spirits – but they were filled with joy as they welcomed over twenty new believers that day into the family of Jesus!
This scene seemed improbable only a year before when a small group of Jesus followers invited friends and neighbors to do life together and dream about “the world that ought to be” and “an alternative society.” They used these descriptors for the Kingdom of God when inviting and welcoming people to participate. Many of those who gathered were in one way or another feeling marginalized, anxious, or frustrated by the “triple-crisis” of the COVID shutdown, the societal upheaval that came with George Floyd, #MeToo, ideological agendas, and the deeply divided politics that flooded the airwaves. Each person, whatever the stress points, simply wanted something different for their lives.
Before that frigid day at the lake, most of this community would not be easily identified as Christian, in either belief or religious practice. About eighty percent of the gathering were people who came from backgrounds that were either post-Christian, non-religious, church-skeptical, or “Oprah-ish” – an informal term used by the people themselves for a common but amorphous collection of popularized spiritual sentiments mixing positive thinking, self-help, New Age, and neo-Buddhist ideas. However, each person was invited to participate. The meetings took place in homes and had an open atmosphere. Everyone was encouraged to share and participate in meals, discussions, prayer, ministry to each other, and singing/live music for worship.
The agenda or content for their time together was also extremely practical. The gathering was not so much to wade into the weeds of various bible passages. Rather the purpose was to discover how the gospel might challenge them to live an alternative way of life in a broken world. The key to creating this environment was rooted in the belief of outwardness and inwardness. That is, what we feel is wrong with the world (outwardness) starts within each of us (inwardness) – and so does the solution. That’s where the person and teaching of Jesus came in. It was Jesus who could show these co-travelers how to take the inward journey necessary to transform their outward reality. By taking time to address the real practical brokenness and dysfunction around us and by claiming responsibility to choose an alternative path, the gospel began to speak clearly to each person.
Explorations of Jesus happen organically, stemming from relationships and designed around the people involved. For example, during group discussions, the Jesus-based series Chosen was often mentioned. One of the community members asked what it was about, so a Chosen watch party was organized to work through the series. That same group member was immediately struck by the parallels in the series with her personal history among Hasidic Jews. Jesus confronted the systems that had once caused her own life so much pain, and as she watched she came to see a Savior who could bring new life into her own. As she has flourished with Christ, she has been inspired to co-teach an in-depth Bible study for many who want to know about the Jewish worldview and Old Testament roots of Christianity and Western society. Ministry doesn’t revolve around a predetermined curriculum but flows from the practical experience, pain, gifts, and passions of the people within the community.
When we focus on discipleship, live God’s mission together, and allow ministry to emerge organically through the gifts, experiences, and purposes of people, it continues to make discipleship real in our own lives.
Discipleship in this community happens through mission. They celebrate the sentness of everyone: children, adults, families, and communities. As people go serve together, they necessarily grow, and discipleship is the catalyst of that growth. It’s not unlike Jesus developing his disciples by sending them out on mission in pairs long before they fully understood him. Of course, no one in this community is following an itinerant teacher around the Galilean countryside, but the same principle is practiced in everyday life in New Jersey.
Around the same time as the baptisms in the lake, several felt sent to open a homeschooling learning center as an outreach and service to families. Now, about a dozen families gather 4 days a week in a project-based learning environment where children learn hands-on by making decisions and carrying them out. The theme of the learning is growing while making an impact on the world. Still, others have felt sent to serve in an adult coaching community that we formed. The coaching community is referred to as a “Dojo” because it is intended to forge practical learning and shared purpose. It is where members disciple each other and launch into micro-missions in their families and work. The results have been transformative: people have healed from long-term dysfunction, families have seen breakthroughs in their relationships, and businesses have been conceptualized and started.
What does this experience teach us? How does this story impact the ministry of church leaders, ministers, and church planters? There is much indeed.
As the religiously unaffiliated, non-religious, and hybrid spiritualities are increasingly common in the mainstream of American life and discourse, this story shouts that no one is out of reach of Jesus. In fact, if we can imagine a ministry beyond some of the systems or customs that have failed to appeal to these populations, Jesus still draws people to him.
There is little doubt that we are living in a time of great frustration. With increasing institutional mistrust and deep cultural divisions, our societal landscape is ripe for a vision of a different world. Jesus paints a picture of that alternative world and calls us to share responsibility in helping to bring it into our everyday practical realities. When we focus on discipleship, live God’s mission together, and allow ministry to emerge organically through the gifts, experiences, and purposes of people, it continues to make discipleship real in our own lives.
These gatherings included things like shared meals, singing, and discussions about the gospel. On the surface, that all sounds pretty familiar to anyone in church leadership. However, the driving force of these gatherings was rooted in practical and personal experience. The good news of the Kingdom responded to these life experiences with an alternative vision through Jesus, and it called each to participate with Jesus to realize His Kingdom come.
On a rainy Autumn day, a couple of dozen people stood in a lake to be baptized because they had experienced good news. They continued to gather and continue to identify and pursue ministry to initiate both in their neighborhoods and with one another because they began to see themselves as part of the story of that good news.
Ben Cheek is a Mobilization Catalyst with Global City Mission and serves as Executive Director of Camp Deer Park in New York. Dr. Jared Looney is the Executive Director of Global City Mission (www.globalcitymission.org) while teaching & equipping for missional outreach in local churches, colleges, and ministries.