Last weekend, we celebrated Pentecost as we gathered for our Community Creativity Session to dream together and reimagine what it means to live out the gospel together in our neighborhoods. We took inventory of all the gifts within our faith community and our neighborhoods and we were overwhelmed with the abundance of what is possible. And the Spirit began to breathe on some collective ideas and there was some good energy around continuing to explore where the Spirit is leading us.

And then as we gathered for worship on Sunday, Carrie Cates spoke so eloquently to us about the gift and the wonder of the Spirit -- and how we as followers of Jesus and as part of His body are filled with the Spirit. And one line that keeps reverberating within me is this.

Through the work of the Spirit, we have enough.

We have everything we need to be faithfully present to God and to our neighbors. We have everything we need to live into God's Dream. We have enough. We are enough. We don't have to wait until.... when.... if.... this and that happens... when we get healed or free or trained or we get a different job or our kids grow up or we win the lottery.

The Spirit within us is enough.

And this seemed to coalesce so beautifully with Saturday's Creativity Session. As we did our asset mapping, we experienced an epiphany together.

There is more than enough.

There is an abundance of riches. And anything is possible.

For with men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible. -Matt 19:26

And what you or me on our own could never accomplish, WE can. What we would never have the bandwidth or skills or energy to do on our own becomes possible with the power of the collective WE.

Alone we can do so little. Together we can do so much. -Helen Keller

And not only possible -- FUN! You could feel it palpably in the room! To begin to realize that all the dreams that seem so far out of reach are actually possible! And that there is deep meaning, connection and joy found in the discovery of abundance, creativity and shared gifts.

For me, this is the dream. When we all come together in the community to share our small gifts, a few fish, a couple of loaves, a gift of finance, a gift of cooking, a gift of gardening, a gift of therapy, a gift of wood working to experience the miracle. To bear witness to what happens when the same Spirit that multiplied the fish and the loaves for the multitudes breathes on our humble offerings.

And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to dream big.

​This was something that was discerned in our time together. That if we shoot for Mars, we just might end up on the Moon. And so I believe that the Spirit is inviting us to leave behind our worldview of scarcity and all the reasons why we simply cannot live into the dream to turn towards a worldview of the kingdom that says...

There is more than enough.

In fact, there is an abundance. And all thing are possible with God. And it's going to more wild and challenging and joyful and meaningful than we could ever imagine.

Those who sign on and depart the system of anxious scarcity become the historymakers in the neighborhood. -Walter Brueggemann

The Spirit is here. Pouring out dreams and visions and fresh revelation and imagination that are prophetic invitations to us in our day and in our time. And these dreams are for everyone, regardless of gender, class, age and race. This big and beautiful Dream of God is for everyone!

So go ahead.

Dream big.

‘In the last days,’ God says, 
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. 
Your sons and daughters will prophesy. 
Your young men will see visions, 
and your old men will dream dreams. 
In those days I will pour out my Spirit 
even on my servants–men and women alike– 
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

​by Jessica Ketola

This Sunday we will celebrate Pentecost, the birth of the church and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles even as we come together for our Community Creativity Session in our own holy huddle to wait for the inspiration and empowerment of the Spirit. We will commemorate the bestowal of the Spirit’s gifts that enabled the apostles to leave the Upper Room and preach the Gospel just as we will wait for the Spirit to enable us also to leave our safe and silo'd lives to be good news to our neighbors. And we will remember that God is with us, from Creation to Mount Sinai to Pentecost to today, the presence of God upon God's people, revealed in wind and fire is our beautiful Holy Spirit who is continuing to lead us just as the cloud of shekinah glory led the Israelites through the wilderness. 

Pentecost derives its origin from a Jewish Festival called the “Feast of Weeks,” otherwise known as the Shavu’ot, which celebrated God's providence and the harvest of wheat. The Feast of Weeks, deriving from the Greek word Pentekostos (meaning “fifty”) occurs fifty days after the Passover. Shavu'ot soon came to commemorate the covenant God established with his people through Moses on Mount Sinai as many believe that Moses received the Law on Sinai during the Feast of the Weeks. And so just as the shekinah glory descended on the mountain as God bestowed a covenant with God's people, so the Holy Spirit descended in the upper room as God bestowed a new covenant of his blood. And gifts were poured out in abundance, hearts were emboldened, and the all inclusive sweeping nature of the gospel was made known as a multicultural crowd heard this revolutionary message in their own language. And the Church was birthed as three thousand hearts were compelled to join God's dream in the world, fulfilling the words of the prophet Joel.

‘In the last days,’ God says,
‘I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
Your young men will see visions,
and your old men will dream dreams.
In those days I will pour out my Spirit
even on my servants–men and women alike–
and they will prophesy. (Acts 2:17-18; Joel 2:28-29)

This Saturday, as The Feast of Weeks begins, we will meet for our Community Creativity Session to celebrate that God's Spirit has been poured out upon all people. And we will remember that we are a part of this sweeping story of God that is so much bigger than ourselves and includes everything and everyone! We will pray for the Spirit to move upon us so that every man, woman and child regardless of race, class, gender or difference can hear the good news in a way that makes sense to them. And as we stir up creativity and imagination, we will pray for the gifts of the Spirit to be poured out upon us propelling us into God's Dream for our neighborhoods. And we will prophetically call forth that which is unseen. We will share visions and dreams. And we will pray for the Spirit to continue to birth her work among us.

​by Jessica Ketola

I was recently asked to share my story at the Inhabit Conference on April 27-28, 2018 in Seattle and so thought I'd share it here as well.

This is my story of the foolish and audacious yes -- a glorious and daunting tale of saying yes to what the Spirit is birthing in our community. And it is not for the faint of heart. But I believe that this is what the Spirit is up to today. Beckoning us to leave behind what is familiar, we are being asked to cross the threshold into the wilderness. To leave behind what is dead and lifeless and the systems of oppression to step into the new, into life and into freedom. To let go of our own small, individual stories to be invited into a much larger story that is so compelling, it is worth giving our lives to.
 
foolish and audacious yes #1
Five years ago, my first foolish and audacious yes was to sign myself up for a program called Leadership in the New Parish. I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had never attended the Inhabit Conference. I didn’t really know much about the Parish Collective. All I knew was that I was desperate to find a way forward and to explore new practices and paradigms for church.
 
For I was well aware that our current models were for the most part failing us, and yet I was still very much immersed in them. At the time, I was the associate pastor of a small but vibrant Vineyard community church in Shoreline, Washington, where I also served as the director our local nonprofit, Turning Point. But while there were only a few of us who lived in the community where our church building was located, we had intentioned to be a presence for good in our neighborhood. We were following the missional conversation and longing to practice the way of Jesus. And so we did a lot of listening -- opening up our building to be a cold weather shelter, being a part of community round tables, starting a food bank giving garden, birthing a nonprofit, and investing in immigrant youth and families in the neighborhood. And yet in spite of all of this, we began to see that our model of church was actually at times working against us - working against the embodiment of our faith to live into the teachings of Jesus in a transformative way.
 
And so over the course of that year, I began to have a new imagination for what the kingdom could look like in my community and in my neighborhood and it set me on a trajectory that has forever changed the course of my life and of our faith community.
 
foolish and audacious yes #2
And so my second foolish and audacious yes was to the invitation of the Spirit to move into the neighborhood. We sold our home. We uprooted our family of 6. And we took some huge risks. Because we weren’t entirely convinced that this neighborhood stuff would really work in our suburban/semi-urban context. We didn’t look like many of the neighborhoods that were having success in more urban and walkable neighborhoods. But would it work here? And would we be able to transition our commuter church to have an imagination to root in our neighborhoods? Was this even possible?

Now I wish I could tell you that it all went glowingly after this. But as we journeyed to follow the Spirit into the unknown, we found that often life comes out of death. New paradigms are birthed out of disorientation. New assignments are born out of scattering and wilderness. This is the way of the Spirit, of transformation, of death and of birth.
 
And so our first attempts at neighboring were pretty much a flop. Who knew it was so hard to get to know your neighbors? We held barbecues in our front yard that no one came to. We baked cookies as offerings of friendship that were never returned. I have vivid images of my husband who would literally run after the neighbor’s car down our driveway just to say hello.
 
foolish and audacious yes #3
Our third foolish and audacious yes was to disrupt the status quo in our faith community. And this is where it got real. We were growing increasingly discontent with the way that our lived experience as the church was forming us and how irrelevant we seemed to our neighbors. So we entered a community discernment process and made the decision to move our regular Sunday service to a Sunday night dinner church and the whole thing blew up. I mean, for real. The ugly church stuff that those of you who have lived through are now having PTS symptoms just thinking of it, and half of our community left. I know this may not be exactly heartening to you. But it is what happened. It was horrible. Awful. I cried every day and at times, our lead pastor and I considered just giving up, throwing in the towel and going to work for Amazon. We felt disillusioned and disoriented, and yet somehow through it all, the Spirit sustained us.
 
foolish and audacious yes #4
It was less than a year later when I said my fourth foolish and audacious yes -- which was the biggest yet (you think I would have learned my lesson by now) -- but I said yes to step in as lead pastor. Utterly foolish after our beloved pastor of 20 years was forced to resign suffering from congestive heart failure. This was another huge blow. Utterly audacious to believe that there was still hope for our struggling and now traumatized congregation.
 
But I had this crazy good dream, this fire in my belly. You see I had no interest in doing church if it meant more of the same religious activity. In fact, I wanted nothing to do with it. But this dream. Where our neighborhoods are pulled into shalom, seeking justice for those without power and privilege, where everyone across difference, race and class are coming together to seek the flourishing of our communities. The hope of seeing God revealed here in us, the body of Christ - where our neighbors begin to see that God is for them, where church is experienced around the table, and hopes are shared on the bus and the coffee shop and the community forums. This, this was compelling.

And so this is where the story gets crazy good. For we as the church are celebrating Eastertide and we know that there is life after death. And I have seen miracle upon miracle of this spirit of resurrection at work in our church and in our neighborhood. It has been just over one year since we re-launched The Practicing Church in our living room and I’m beginning to believe that this dream is actually possible. We have seen many miracles of the Spirit: sending us people across the country to join us; opening up housing so that we could live in proximity; miracles of finances and jobs in the neighborhood; miracles of friendships and shared life with our neighbors as we share a weekly meal together and connect over parties, fire pits and summer bbq's. And we are beginning to be a part of the fabric of care here, active in our neighborhood associations and schools, hosting a social justice book club, participating on diversity and equity task forces, breaking bread with our immigrant neighbors and continuing to be faithfully present to children and families through our after school tutoring program.  
 
And I feel like I’m home. I no longer feel the incongruence and disconnects of my former church experience. And while we are only just beginning to live into God’s dream, learning what it means to be faithfully present, it feels resonate and integrated in a way that I have never experienced before. And yet we still don’t know what it’s going to look like. We are staring into the darkness of the unknown, waiting for the Spirit to lead us on. But we believe with all of our hearts that the Spirit is birthing something new in the church, inviting us to believe that there is a better way - to live as a beautifully diverse beloved community into the dare of the gospel.

And so the question remains.
 
Will we be just foolish enough?

Just audacious enough?
​
To say yes?
 
“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’” -God Knows by Minnie Haskins

by Jessica Ketola

We continue to celebrate the joy of Easter, new creation and life bursting into our lives and our community. For we truly believe that God has a big, beautiful Dream to bring shalom, justice and love to our neighborhoods, and that we are to be a part of it!

And as we talked about last Sunday, if our WHY as The Practicing Church is this Dream of God, the renewal of all things, then our HOW is the stunning work of the Holy Spirit present and active among us.

I'm very excited for this Sunday as Rose Swetman will be with us speaking about the very real and active presence of the Holy Spirit among us. For we want to be a people of God's presence, filled with the power of the Spirit. This same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. [For a deeper dive, check out these short videos from Vineyard USA about the Holy Spirit.]

And while we love the Spirit of God, the work and the empowerment of the Divine in our midst, we know we are to live this out in an embodied way. We see this model beautifully in the life of Jesus. We want to be a people grounded in the love of God and love of neighbor. And we will hold fiercely to the tension of being a people of God's presence and power while being rooted and grounded in love in an embodied way in our neighborhoods.

Here is a beautiful story of presence and place from some folks in our Vineyard family in Campbellsville, KY.
​
Coffee That Cultivates Community

For what happens when we combine the divine resolve and power with human, embodied agency? Walter Brueggemann would say, "The outcome is a human agent who can act and dream outside imperial reality. And dreaming outside imperial reality, that human agent can begin the daring extrication of this people from the imperial system."

Agency Plus Resolve, Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good

In other words, freedom, shalom, and renewal happens. Resurrection happens. And we see the movement of the gospel story, of Exodus, of a people leaving empire and slavery to step into human agency as people of God's presence. God's dream is realized when we join God's plan, purposes and presence with our human embodiment to be the hands and feet of Jesus here on the earth. Here in our homes, our neighborhoods, our schools and our work places.

My prayer for you this week is that you would be filled with the presence of the Spirit everywhere your feet walk this blessed earth and every time your hands touch the stranger, your neighbor and those you love. May you feel the life-giving, creative breath of God bringing you and your neighbor to life, awakening dreams and desires, and renewing and redeeming everything and everyone.

Be filled with the Divine Spirit and be embodied and present in your places!

by Jessica Ketola

This is Holy Week. A week full of table turnings, parables that point towards a reckoning of some sort, and an unnerving and poignant last supper where Jesus washes the feet of his followers and redefines what power looks like. And of course, the passion of Christ. The one who had all power and might, who had all things at his disposal, who chose to give up all power and humble himself to die a death of thieves. A king who suffered the injustice of accusation, mockery, betrayal, torment, beatings and indignities until his ultimate humiliation and anguish on the cross.

All this for LOVE. Love that conquered evil. Love that conquered death. Love that has the power to redeem and reconcile everything and everyone.

Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. [John 15:13]

All this for US. The objects of God's love and affection. The friends of God. The recipients of this abundant new life and freedom. Awakened now to our true vocation to co-create healing and renewal in the world.

This is the redeeming work of God. This is the ministry of Jesus. This is what the Spirit is all about in the world. Calling us out of death into life. Calling us out of darkness into light. Redeeming the most twisted and painful stories of heartbreak into something so achingly beautiful that we are overcome. Compelled like Mary to fall down at the feet of Jesus and to break open the alabaster jar as the tears fall freely.

There is something so cosmic and yet so personal about his death. Redeemer of all creation who subversively conquers evil for all people and for all time.

And my friend. I imagine having dinner with Jesus in his final week. The richness of friendship as he ate at Lazarus' home. The shocking intimacy of Mary anointing Jesus' feet. And the even more scandalous act of Jesus' washing the feet of his disciples, of washing my feet.

And it is hard to wrap my head around Jesus' passion and humiliation on the cross.

As I consider the cross, it invites me to an extravagance of worship and to a deeper surrender of all I hold dear. Jesus gave His all for LOVE. And this love invites and compels me to do the same.

My prayer as we journey through Holy Week is that we will encounter the extraordinary love and grace of God and hear the invitation of the cross. To die so that we might live.

This extraordinary love and grace that means nothing until it becomes an embodied experience. Until it fills flesh and bones til they tremble. Until it is shared around dinner tables and community forums and across socioeconomic and racial divides. Until it humbles us, enlarges us, and transforms us to be more fully human. Until we grasp that this divine love is both profoundly cosmic, larger that we can comprehend, and yet deeply personal and more intimate than we want to believe. 

As I consider my neighborhood, this holy ground, this patch of the earth where God has placed me, the neighbors I know, the neighbors I don't know, the needs, the gifts, the inequities, the dreams and the struggles -- I want to be a part of the ache and the beauty here, to give up my small and piecemeal life to enter into the much larger story of redemption and renewal that includes all of us. To bear witness to the creative life of the Spirit that is making all things new, even me.

by Jessica Ketola

Join Us For Easter!
We will celebrate this new, abundant life, this creative, energizing spirit bursting into the world, and the power of love. Join us for a service, easter egg hunt and a brunch as we put on our dancing shoes, throw our heads back and proclaim that LOVE WINS!

The thing about fasting is hunger.
​
I'm hungry today. For food, yes. But even more, for the Spirit to birth God's purposes in us. Whatever this is. This big beautiful dream to share life together as followers of Jesus embodying love in our neighborhoods -- so that our neighbors can actually taste and see that God is good and begin to experience the grace and shalom of the kingdom. This is what I'm hungry for.

As we were praying this morning, I was overwhelmed by this. I could feel the tears of intercession and the fire in my belly. Oh, how I long for us to see the truth of who God is. Not the monster gods of our own shame-laden and fearful imaginations. Punitive, unyielding kill-joys bent on moral policing and who's in and who's out. This is not the God I know. Nor is it the God portrayed in Jesus.

If there is one reason that makes me just crazy enough to attempt pastoring a church, this is it. The glaring discrepancy between how most of my neighbors perceive God and the truth of who God is. I grieve over this. I grieve over the ways that I still don't get it. I grieve over the layers of bad news that the church has propagated that actually serve as barriers to the grace of God.

This beautiful, extravagant, abundant, scandalous grace.

If ever there was a time for good news in the world, this would be it. Jesus came at such a time too. And he proclaimed and demonstrated a new day of grace and the end of religion. This is something I can get behind -- something I don't mind getting on my soapbox for. God's kingdom of love is the best news in town.

But words mean nothing if we are not living out this way of love in an embodied way, sharing life together where the rubber hits the road. All these scriptures we know and yet struggle to live into in any substantiative way.

"By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” [John 13:35]

"No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. [I John 4:12]

"No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day. [John 1:18]

And so today, this is my prayer. That Jesus would be revealed through us as his body fashioned together to be a home for the presence of God and to be his hands and feet in the world.
​
That we would know the breadth and length, the depth and height of God's extravagant love.

And that our neighbors would know it too. That they could see what God is like.

This is my deepest hunger and desire.

You see, the thing about fasting is hunger.

by Jessica Ketola

I talk about the neighborhood a lot. About reimagining what it means to be the church today. About finding both new and ancient paths to co-create and partner with the work of the Spirit in our everyday realities.

You may sigh a little. You may tire of the redundancy. But I am unapologetic. The modern form of church now prevalent for the past 70 years is on life support. We are in the midst of unprecedented tectonic shifts, which history tells us are presently due 500 years post the Reformation. And so we must become midwives to what the Spirit is birthing. We must rethink, innovate and co-create something new.

And yet all transformation requires a death, a loss of what has been, a letting go. This is not easy work. This is not comfortable work. This is neither for the faint of heart or the indifferent. Rather, it requires a daring tenacity and a robust faith. A willingness to risk and to fail and to iterate.

It is for the bold and the audacious who are just foolish enough to believe that there is a better way--

To live as a beloved community into the dare of the gospel.

And yet, this is anything but idyllic. Rather, it is mundane. It is gritty. It is sometimes so unspectacular that we wonder if anything worthwhile is happening at all. There are conflicts and offenses, differences and apathies, disappointments and betrayals. We grow weary, disheartened, sure that we are being taken advantage of, sure of the futility of our endeavors. We are human, both glorious and inane.

And yet death comes before life. The seed dies before the new tender shoot emerges from the earth. This is the way of Lent. This is the way of the cross. This is the way of birthing. This is the way of dying.

This is where the mystery of the tomb coalesces with the miracle of the womb.

And so as we consider our impending death, what is it that we need to surrender? What is it that needs to die? What is it that we need to let go of? And as we journey together with community fasting and prayer, what collectively is it that we need to give up?

Is it our comfort? Our need for success? The ways in which we want what we want when we want it? Our individualism and our independence?

Is it our reluctance to commit or to be inconvenienced? Our prejudices? Our resentments? Our fear? Our jealousies? Our insecurities? Our wounds? Our self-hate?

Or is it our need to please others? Our need to be validated? Our need to be important? Our security? Our need for control? Our power? Our privilege? Our possessions?

What is it that needs to die?

Everybody wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die. So the saying goes. But Jesus promises us that as we lose the striving and scarcity of our own small lives, we will enter the expansiveness of His full and abundant life. [Matthew 16:25]

And as a faith community, I believe this is also true. Though we must not diminish the cost, the dream awaits us. For as we die to our independence and the comfort of our default ways of "going" to church, we will enter the extravagance of the beautifully diverse community living together to "be" the church, rooted in God's Dream for us and our neighborhoods.

And so my prayer this week is that we would sit with the question, What is it that needs to die? And that we would enter the paradox of the tomb, of death, surrender, and letting go, hopeful that in time from the womb of our deepest desires, new life will emerge.

By Jessica Ketola

I have been loving going through the parables for Lent and discovering the upside down, inside out, backwards paradoxes of Jesus' teachings.

We like BIG. Jesus is a fan of SMALL. Seeds. Children. Net worths.

We want to be IMPORTANT. Jesus calls us to be the LEAST. The servant. The last. The poor.

We like to WIN. Jesus calls us to LOSE. Our lives. Our self-absorption. Our egos.

We want MONEY, FAME, SECURITY. Jesus calls us to RISK. To sell our possessions and to give up our reputations.

We want to FIGHT evil. Jesus calls us to FORGIVE evil.

We like PEOPLE LIKE US who are in our circles. Jesus calls us to love PEOPLE UNLIKE US who OFFEND us or SCARE us, those outside our circle, even our ENEMIES. The leper, the tax collector, the addict and the sex worker. Our neighbors who live outside, identify as transgender, practice Islam, or speak a different language.

My prayer as we continue through Lent is that we continue to embrace the downward descent of the cross and begin to value the small and menial everyday things that turn out to be the most significant.

by Jessica Ketola

As we begin the season of Lent, we enter into the mystery of God in Jesus and the paradox of the kingdom. Yesterday was no exception. I wanted to feel my mortality, to revel in my humanity. To remember that I am dust, and to dust I will return. I am not God. Nor am I a wonder worker or superhero. I remind myself of this often. Weekly, even daily.
 
As we enter the season of Lent, the 40 days and 6 Sundays before Easter that the church sets aside time for repentance, generosity to the poor, and prayer, we turn our hearts back to God. We considered this last Sunday as we looked at the temptations of Jesus and our core wounds that tempt us to meet our needs for power and control, affirmation and approval, and security outside of God. Mine is glaring me in the face right now. I want to be "okay" or "enough" in the world by performing to gain the approval and esteem of others. In my younger years, I tried to dazzle them with extraordinary feats and breathtaking performances, even if it killed me. To somehow prove to myself and others that I was worthy of love. But as you and I both know, this is a game that cannot be won. It is impossible to please everyone, nor should we try. Especially if we are doing something worth doing, creating beauty and meaning, fighting injustice and pioneering new paths, we can only expect critique, push back, and sabotage. We are mortal. We experience setbacks, illness, and loss. Not only that, but we stumble, we say the wrong thing or make the wrong decision. We fail. And it sucks. Yesterday, I felt my imperfection and my flawed humanity and it stung.
 
This is why I desperately needed the black ashen marks of the cross yesterday. Why I needed a visible sign on my forehead dispelling the myth that I am more than dust. I am limited, human, and fragile. I cannot save anyone. Nor can you. There is a certain kind of relief that comes in this knowledge. We can cease from striving, rest, let the heavy burden to make something of ourselves roll off our shoulders, inhale and exhale. And so I stared at the symbol of the man on the crucifix and knelt in my pew uttering sacred words of repentance. Jesus is the only one who saves, and even he was not a superhero but died a criminal's death. And so I ate of the body of Christ broken for me and drank from the cup, his blood poured out for me, and I died another death to my need to be spectacular.
 
The paradox came as I added my Valentine's celebrations to my ashes. Yes, I couldn't resist. I hung a heart banner with the words BELIEVE IN LOVE, baked some chocolate chip cookies, and gave little chocolates and handwritten notes to my loved ones. And while the origins of St. Valentine's Day are vague and co-opted at best, on this day I choose to celebrate love. Not the romantic love that makes us miserable and excludes most of us, but the true agape love that makes the world go round and includes absolutely everyone. And I found that along with my need for ashes, I needed this too. To know that I am loved, deeply and profoundly. Just as I am. Flawed and insecure, smudged with sacred cinders, I am beloved. I needed to open up my home as I do every Wednesday night to be with the beloved community, to laugh, to eat, to share conversation and life, to remind others that they are beloved too. This is the invitation. To enter into the baptismal waters, where we lay down all our striving, our stinging insecurity and our need for approval only to be raised up out of the waters. And to be filled with the Spirit of Love and to hear the words of the Father. You are my beloved, my daughters and my sons, in whom I am well pleased. This. This is all I need to hear. All I need to know. I am dust and yet the Spirit of God has breathed her very breath into this dust, creating me in the image of the divine to be a beloved child and to be a part of love's healing and redemptive work in the world.  This is the paradox. I am but dust and yet I am loved. 


by Jessica Ketola

Last Sunday, we talked about God's Big, Beautiful Dream at our gathering and the Community Budget Meeting that followed. And the excitement of what could be was palpable in the room. For we are beginning to see that the Spirit of God is out ahead of us, beckoning us.

And I am so thankful to our board and to so many wonderful community members who are committed to investing in this Dream together.

What is the Dream, you ask? Why, I thought you'd never ask!
​
We believe that God has a big, beautiful dream for us and our neighborhoods.

And it includes everything and everyone.

We have a conviction that the Creator God is at work to heal and remake the whole world. Our own lives are a part of that renewal project and we are invited to join God in the ongoing work of making all things new. To follow Jesus and join Him in His mission is to become agents of renewal in our neighborhoods, our industries, and our city.

We want to join in God’s Dream by engaging in practices that ground us in the love of God and love of neighbor. For we have this crazy dream. And it is a dream that we as the people of God would no longer be asleep, irrelevant and indifferent to the world, but that we would actually live into what it means to follow Jesus, to embody love, and to be his hands and feet in the earth.

It is a dream of catalyzing ordinary folks like you and me to go into the world (Seattle Metro Area) in the places we live, work and play to announce and demonstrate the good news of Jesus. We believe that it really is good news and that we must reinterpret the gospel through new lenses of love and grace in the particularities of our everyday lives. We dream of groups of sincere followers of Jesus, starting here in Shoreline, but eventually all across the Seattle area, who are joining God in the renewal and flourishing of their neighborhoods -- who are listening, caring, praying, and joining in God's healing work in their everyday lives. And we believe that the Spirit of God is already out ahead of us, in our neighborhoods and workplaces, inviting us to see, to listen and to attend to Her movement.

​Okay -- so this is a nice Dream -- but HOW will we live into it?

​We will live into this dream by engaging in formational, missional, and communal practices.

To hear more about WHY it is good for us to give and to orient all aspects of our lives around the Way of Jesus, you can listen to last Sunday's Talk or read our giving statement online!

And if you would like to see the budget, just email me and I'll send that info along.
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I am so excited to journey with you into all that God has for us as we seek to live into the Dream!

by Jessica Ketola