We choose the word pursuits carefully. They aren’t requirements for membership. Anyone who wants to follow Jesus belongs here. And they aren’t accomplishments; our constant confession is that we’re all struggling under the weight of one kind of brokenness or another. They’re simply the concrete practices we hope will anchor our lives in God’s work of redemption.
We want to be people who don’t just talk about our faith and hold certain beliefs, only to live in such a way that our lives are virtually indistinguishable from our friends and neighbors. We want to follow Jesus in the big issues of life, especially money, sex, and power.
We don’t shrink away from talking about these things when we gather. When we worship together, we don’t come to be affirmed in the beliefs we already hold. We come to be challenged, to ask questions, to gaze in wonder at the mystery of the kingdom of God, and to let God call our lives into question.
When we scatter, we try to put into practice all that we’re learning. We take seriously the call to live with integrity in how we steward our finances, our bodies, and our relationship to power. As we pursue faithfulness to Christ, this long obedience in the same direction, we know our relationship to money, sex, and power must transform as well.