Our discipleship model, the rhythm of how our community functions, is network, gateway, commitment.
We start by making connections. I do this by showing up at school, being on the PTA, volunteering at the Portland Art Museum, shopping at local businesses, serving on nonprofit boards, doing intake at a clinic for folks on the margins, and maintaining an active social media presence. All of this allows me to meet new people and build relationships. Others in our community do this work in a variety of ways. We are intentional about making space in our lives to form relationships with others, and to be looking for new ways to connect and therefore learn about our communities. This has an effect of putting us in touch with people who may want to be part of our faith community. Most importantly networking allows us to live love in lots of ways with a wide range of people. Most of the folks we network with never become part of SFC, yet the ways we get to be present and share light and life are rich and part of the gift of this way of being church.
After we build relationships and connections we begin to see people who might be interested in some spiritual exploration. We invite them in to a night at a bar talking about theology, or a hike in the woods with moments of meditation and reflection, or a worship experience based on silence and chanting, or a conversation about a book, or a project serving our neighbors. These are way that folks can begin to experience this community and grow spiritually. We also advertise these events on meetup.com and Facebook. People show up who are interested and we have a great time exploring faith and spirit together. The ability to meet people where they are and offer safe spaces to grow spiritually is amazing. This is the holy gift we give to our city. Of the folks who come to these events some really are seeking a community to be part of and so we then invite them to dinner.
Dinner is the heart of our community. It’s where we build deep, supportive relationships with one another. It’s where we are renewed to go and do our ministries out in the world. Being committed doesn’t mean coming every week, but it does mean wanting to be part of community and be willing to listen and love one another. The people who are part of dinner right now came from referrals from other pastors, saw our sign out front, are people we are friends with, or came to Taize worship and never left.
A few weeks ago we had a young man who had been steadily attending one of our gateway events come to dinner. This was one more piece of holy evidence that this experiment in church is working and bearing fruit. I’m not sure if he will come back, this is his journey and we are simply opening up possibilities for him. It is up to him to discern his own call to community. It’s taken us two years to this point, where someone came to dinner who did not know us in any other way than through a gateway event. This work is slow, and it is beautiful. It is holy and hard. And I could not imagine any better investment of our life energy, time, and resources. Thank you for your support which allows us to do this amazing work of God.
-Eilidh
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| Looking at growth |
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