We are beginning a new series on “Becoming Like Family” as our online community begin to share the daily challenges with friends, and we begin to gather our larger community together.

We want to have five main characteristics, and the first is to be bound together by some common learning experiences.

In October I attended my university’s homecoming reunion, and reconnected with a lot of friends.  Our friendships were forged through four years in a common learning experience.

The same weekend, I went to a church where I’d done a student placement.  There was personality, familiarity, and comfort there, too.  We were gathered around a common purpose, to learn about and grow as followers of Jesus.

We want to be that kind of community.  It’s hard in suburbia, especially if you are commuting, but we have our own unique way of pursuing a common learning experience through mobile apps, social media, and our web site.

Our next step is to become a network of groups, where we build strong relationships with existing friends and family members, where one of the things that binds us together is we are all learning the same things through discussion, challenge, encouragement and prayer.

Question: Who was your best learning group or team?  What made it so?

Coffee Hours this Week:

Have questions about the challenges, do you want to meet others exploring the same content, or connect with Ryan?

Join us for our coffee shop drop-in this Wednesay, October 30th from 7:30pm-9:00pm at the Starbucks in the Ajax Chapters.  Look for Ryan Sim in the drink line, or a Redeem the Commute postcard on a table.

If you know in advance that you’re coming, please RSVP here http://bit.ly/1aHVTy2

Ryan Sim - September 12, 2013

Thursday - Act On It - Neighbours Matter

Yesterday I asked you to define love. One common way people today define love is to be as tolerant and permissive as possible, as long as the other person does not to hurt others. See what a low standard that is? Jesus defines love to a much higher degree, he says to love one another as oneself. He knows we are self-centered…and Jesus uses that to teach us love for others. Between loving God with everything, and loving neighbours as ourselves, Jesus has declared self-salvation to be impossible. We may love God to one degree or another. But with everything? We can and should try, but we reach our limits since we are only human, and separated ourselves from God in sin. We need help. Equally true, we may make ourselves harmless and never say a word to anyone who isn’t harming another, but we can’t make ourselves completely love others as ourselves – we always want more for ourselves than to be tolerated and put up with. We can and should try to love others as ourselves, but we need the help of another to do this. Jesus made himself harmless, and willingly sacrificed himself on a cross in the ultimate action of love for God and others. He led the way, and did what would be impossible for humans, so we could follow him in love for God and love for others, rather than trying to trailblaze ourselves. We’ll look at this more in this upcoming series on neighbours. Challenge: How do your actions “hang’ under love of God or love of neighbour? Is there anything you’ve done in the last week that doesn’t fit one of those loves?

Discuss

More Messages Associated With "God"...

Powered by Series Engine