We've been talking about the fire in our bones. Why do we exist as a church? In the sea of churches out there, why are we so passionate about God's dream for us and our community? And as I have been pondering this, I truly believe that we are poised for such a time as this.

THE DREAM
Every single person on the planet today is longing for love and for meaning, for wholeness and shalom, to come home to their true selves and to join in God's work of renewal in the world. [I blogged about this last week here].

THE PROBLEM
And yet we know that the world around us is deeply fragmented with fear, hate and greed and hostile to the flourishing of our own souls, our communities, and our environment. And our own souls are fragmented too, captive to anxiety and fear, hustling to be enough and to escape the tyranny of our own shame. The gods of this age, individualism, narcissism, technology, and consumerism have promised the American Dream (which btw is not God’s Dream). But instead of freedom, they have actually enslaved us, oppressed us and ravaged our world. Our 24-7 frenetic lifestyles, addictions to screens and fragmented families and communities have left us anxious, ill, depressed and lonely like never before. And the world is literally on fire as glaciers melt and rain forests burn.

THE HOPE
​We believe there is another way to live. We believe that the church exists to invite people into love and meaning and to join God in the renewal of all things. As The Practicing Church, we join this work of renewal and healing in the world by practices that ground us in the love of God.

THE JOURNEY
As The Practicing Church, we invite you to take this transformational journey into love. And it is a journey inward to heal from your wounds and to come home to your true selves. It is the journey outward as you step into your true vocation and your life’s work joining in this work of renewal in the world. And it is a journey we take together. We were never meant to do life alone.

Practicing Love
And so in order to take this journey, we must engage in practices of formation, mission and community. As The Practicing Church we want to be followers of Jesus that are “practicing” our faith. We believe that living into the way of Jesus takes practice – and that our faith is much more than something we add to our already busy, stressed out lives, but rather, it is a way of life.

For there is no magic pill. We’re not just going to snap our fingers and instantly be transformed into a Mother Teresa, living a life of love and meaning. It doesn't work that way. We all know it takes practice to acquire a skill, whether we are practicing medicine or yoga or learning a new instrument, language or business. What we practice, we become. And so we know it will take practice to live into the way of love. For it is never convenient or easy. In fact, we will have to swim upstream against the tides of culture.

The Power of Community
In order to journey upstream, we believe we absolutely need each other. We cannot do it alone. There is power in community and this has been proven again and again in every context and culture. Where you and I might fail on our own, our chances of succeeding go up dramatically if we join with others around a common goal. Community holds you accountable to be the person you say you want to be, the person you are meant to be.

Living True
If we are to have any hope of embodying love in this world in such a way that is actually good news to us and to our neighbors, we must walk the talk. We must live true. We must be people of love. We must be healing and growing and practicing together to become the kind of people that the world is longing for the church to be. And we will need each other to reengage our faith as a profoundly earthy, bodily and communal experience in the midst of an age of secularism, technology, frenetic lifestyles, anxiety, fragmentation, disembodiment, and loneliness.

JOIN US
There is another way to live. Journey with others to practice the counter-cultural way of love and be a part of something good in the world. We will journey with you to take the road less traveled and to hold you accountable to be the person you were meant to be. Take the journey of transformation to come home to yourself and to step fully into God's work in the world!

by Jessica Ketola

Photo by Gian-Reto Tarnutzer 

Photo by Rémi Walle on Unsplash

Every single person on the planet today is longing for love and for meaning. God has put eternity in our hearts. We innately know what we were created for. We are all longing to be reconciled to ourselves, to God and to each other. To experience shalom, wholeness, union with God and with one another.

And yet our culture is deeply fragmented, divided, polarized, given to racism, greed, violence and war. And our souls are fragmented too, captive to anxiety and fear, hustling to be enough and to escape the tyranny of our shame.

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” - Kant

We all long for meaning, to be a part of something good in the world. We long to join in God’s reconciling work in the world. To offer our gifts in a meaningful way. To step into our true calling. And to be a part of something bigger than ourselves.

And yet, the forces of individualism are crushing. We suffer anxiety, loneliness and depression like never before. For the individual was never meant to bear the full weight of meaning. And the gods of consumerism have enslaved us to our insatiable desire for more, stripping away our very humanity for the profit of the dollar. We have been turned into consumers instead of the creators that we truly are.

It is our calling as The Practicing Church to invite people into LOVE AND MEANING.

To proclaim the glorious mystery of God’s grace -- that the gospel is actually good news to our neighbors. And the only way we see that happening is if we together decide to embody love in place - in our work places, schools, and neighborhoods. To actually live in such a way that folks begin to see that God is not like the projections of a wrathful, harsh or distant god. God is good. Like the pinch-me-wake-me-up-I-must-be-dreaming-kind-of-good. Apart from love, everything else is like a resounding gong, a clanging cymbal [I Corinthians 13].

This has become absolutely non-negotiable for me. We must walk the talk or shut up and go home. Of course, we are not going to be perfect. We are human, both beautiful and broken. But we have to own up to our brokenness and be real. If we are going to talk about this God of Love, we must practice the way of love. If we are going to say we are followers of Jesus, then we actually need to be practicing and living this provocative, counter-cultural way of love. If we are going follow the command to love our neighbors as ourselves, then we better well know and love our neighbors!

For this way of love frees us to be who we are created to be.

At The Practicing Church, we desire to be a transformational community. To call people to awake from their slumber to the life that God has called them to. We want to be a prophetic community that says to the world, there is another way to live. To truly embody love and to live out the teachings of Jesus together in such a way that reveals God’s goodness to the world. And we want to invite each and every person on the transformational journey.

Come home to your true selves, own the brokenness and the beauty of your stories, and step fully into your work in the world.

This is the reason we exist. This is the fire in our bones.

by Jessica Ketola