I thought since the vows are fresh it would be good to go through each one and share a few thoughts. I started yesterday with a post about prayer and today I’ll talk a little about community.

One of the community rhythms that we have started practicing is reading a chapter of scripture with others out loud every day. We are currently reading through Romans. We started with Romans 1 on May 1 if you want to follow along. I have found that I get more out of scripture reading when I hear it out loud and can also read along. I also appreciate the opportunity to think about and discuss scripture with others on a daily basis.

Our community Bible seems to be the Complete Jewish Bible. See the image and link below. The author of this translation attempts to connect Christians with the Jewish roots of scripture and the faith. I’m really beginning to appreciate it. Instead of reading about the cross, we hear the execution stake. Instead of referring to Jesus we hear the Messiah Yeshua. Alice and I picked up a copy last week.



The word "community" rarely means the same thing between two people or between two groups of people. For me the term community refers to the group of people that I find myself trying to follow the Messiah Yeshua with. For Alice and I, this includes our cohort and ReImagine friends from around the Bay Area and our peninsula/south bay friends and family from MPPC and a few other local churches.

My observation is that community in the Bay Area tends to be formed around geographic location. Although this can pull people together at first, it is my hunch that community was intended to be formed around a calling or mission that serves to love the creator and creation. In thinking about my experiences with community, my greatest sense of it has always been found intentionally "in mission" either locally or abroad. What I mean is that my deepest sense of community has always been experienced while serving others with friends. When you sense a call to be the hands and feet of Yeshua in the world, grab some friends who are resonating with the same call and see what happens when you try to do something about it together.

For our community, the sense of call is taking shape around helping others discover life in the way of Yeshua the Messiah. It has been difficult at times because many of us live so far apart but I sense (and trust) that a deepening sense of mission will develop as we progress.

Tags: monasticism, community