lifeasmission

Words Are Coming

May 23, 2009 // 1097No Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2009/05/words-are-coming/Words+Are+Coming2009-05-23+16%3A05%3A07JR+Rozko

Planning a wedding.

Looking for work.

Looking for an apartment.

Integrating lives.

Getting rooted in a new community.

TAing a class.

Preparing to teach another.

Traveling to California.

Life has been busy – super great, but busy.  I am deeply regretting that I haven’t done a better job of captuiring, in words and pictures, more of Amy and I’s time of engagement.  So much is going on, so many plans being made, and so many stories are being created that I have simply gotten so caught up in trying to deeply experience and cherish it all that I haven’t taken the time to capture and reflect on it.  I hope to remedy this soon.  Stay tuned.

Posted in Amy

Life on the Vine

May 6, 2009 // 10886 Comments »http://lifeasmission.com/blog/2009/05/life-on-the-vine/Life+on+the+Vine2009-05-06+16%3A40%3A43JR+Rozko

As of last Thursday, I live in Chicago!  Not quite Chicago-proper, but in the area nonetheless.  I have been staying with my cousin and her husband for the last few days and am in the process of moving into my finace’s place while she stays with some friends for the rest of the month.  The apartment and job hunts are in full swing!

Life on the Vine is a church community that I nearly moved just to be a part of about a year and a half ago before I accepted the invitation to pastor young adults at Living Hope in Memphis and Sunday was my first opportunity to attend a worship gathering with Amy.  It may have been one of the most meaningful worship gatherings I have ever been a part of.

Once a month the community gathers an hour before their regular meeting for a corporate time of celebrating the Lord’s Supper.  People gathered in the lobby area to meet and catch up.  An order of service was personally handed to each person as we were asked to prepare ourselves before entering the sanctuary.  Upon entering, each person recited, “He is risen” to one of the pastors who was handing out matches for each person to light a candle on their way in symbolizing the presence of Christ.  The service was a combination of prayer, silence, Scripture reading, and reflection.  Finally, we served communion to one another, offering the elements in a communal fashion as opposed to taking them individually.

There was a little bit of time inbetween the communion service and the regular worship gathering to meet some people.

What was most striking about the gathering of the LOV community was how intentional and theological all the elements of the gathering were.  Here were some of the most meaningful elements of the worship gathering.

To communicate our unity as a body and the communal nature of gathering, we sat in concentric circles, thus able to face one another rather staring at the back of peoples heads.  As opposed to people, the candles symbolizing the presence of Christ as well as the communion elements were intentionally placed at the center.  When people spoke, it was always from a side.

We were joined by all the children for the beginning of the service and when they were dismissed/blessed to their time together, not by a pastor, but by the entire community, they in turn blessed us in ours.

Scripture was read by both men and women, young and old from the four “corners” of the circle – surrounding us with the Word of God.

A weekly part of the gatherings at LOV is someone sharing a “story of wonder.”  A story of something God is doing in the life of a member or members of the community.

David Fitch offered the message for the morning.  Because the community gathers together at the same time, and because they understand the formational purpose of the gathered church, he was better able to bring the text for the morning into a direct intersection with the life of the community.

Prayers were offered at different times in the service and we were invited to personalize them out loud with our own thoughts and longings as the Spirit led.

The musicians stood in a corner of the room so as to help people devote their full attention to the words we were singing.  Songs were placed strategically within different elements of the service to serve either as preparation or response to something.

Perhaps the most meaningful part of the gathering came at the end.  As we sang a final song of joy and celebration, some children, a few with disabilities, spontaneously began to dance in a circle around the candles and communion elements at the center of the room.  They led as a few adults joined in with them. Truly beautiful.

I can’t even begin to tell you about all the various artistic elements that enhanced the space we met in or the service we participated in.  Really, the whole thing was like living art, not the sort that can only be enjoyed by overtly artistic people (hello?!), but the sort that connects with the creative part of God’s image in which we’re made.

The fact that Life on the Vine embraces a more participatory form of gathering as a community really contributes to their identification as a missional church community and after finishing up another year as a pastor on staff at a church, I am really looking forward to rediscovering my identity as a “normal” part of a church community.

Posted in Amy, LOV, chicago, church, community, liturgy, living hope, missional, preaching/teaching, spiritual formation