Throwback Thursday: Kaleidoscope of Community

A few glimpses of Community at Hopesprings...

• Giving away candy and hundreds of cups of hot chocolate to trick-or-treaters.
• Watching one of our friends die of cancer, even as we watched him live his life with eyes and heart open in his last days, clinging to Jesus and to his mission with his last breath.
• Being a part of a half-birthday party for a Latvian teenager who is a long way from home and making her feel loved...while supporting the family who took a great risk in welcoming her into their home.
• Singing with, crying with, dancing with, and partnering with friends as we take our next steps with God and people.
• Our life group partnering with Recovery Revolution, seeing stength and hope take root in lives and hearts and minds previously in the pit of addiction.
• Parties...lots of parties. Barbecues. Frisbee. Soccer. Good food.  
• Partying on a float in a halloween parade. Singing ridiculous songs and giving away cookies and smiles to neighbors in the city.
• Cutting hair for kids in the community while they get school supplies and backpacks; parents relieved that they have one less thing to worry about.
• Welcoming people who uprooted and moved halfway across the country to experience Hopesprings.  
• Performing a funeral for a neighbor of someone at Hopesprings as a result of that someone being a good neighbor.
• Watching a group of people be honest, messy, real...and seeing them stick together and grow in the midst of the mess.
• Seeing folks surround other folks taking huge steps of faith towards new life in Christ, giving them love and support along the way.

This has all happened IN THE PAST YEAR. These are the kind of things that typify the culture, the community, the family cultivated at Hopesprings in Bangor. These beautiful moments, and many, many others, are the things that get me excited about jumping out of a plane to see this kind of community take root in a new place.  

Building community can be a tricky, dangerous, wonderful thing. It takes more than you think you can give, stretching you in ways you never thought you could. It is scary. Yet it is what Jesus died to create...His people rescued. His family restored. His mission extended in and to anyone captivated by His love.  

Jesus' crew is a wild one. Zealots, tax collectors, fishermen, rich, poor...folks who would have hated each other are put together by Jesus, loved by Jesus, and turned loose by Jesus to show how powerful the grace of God can be in a community of people willing to love God and love others.  

I look around Hopesprings in Bangor, knowing the people that are gathered and scattered here, and I see a group of people who ONLY could have come together by God's astounding grace. I can't wait to see who and what He will rescue and create in Hopesprings Sioux City as we show and tell the story of God in a community of people.