I am not my own. Just as any great movement may be founded on the ideas and desires of one person but can only be actualized by the support of many, so must I make my movements with the support of the faithful. I am currently in the midst of a very transitional stage of life that encompasses many decisions. I have emerged from my season of formal education and into a new season where I can continue to explore the complexity and simplicity of what it means to follow God in new confines. As I find my footing with those I live alongside, it is imperative that I continue to explore these new frontiers in community. What does that mean? It means that my God is your God, and I cannot speak on behalf of His will without your permission. It means that a group of people who together desire to see love, harmony and unity must decide together what that means in individual lives. As I make decisions about where I will go, what I will do, who I choose to spend my life with, I must send that decision through the ultimate filter: God. God is love, and love establishes itself on earth as the brothers and sisters of the church joining together in self-sacrifice. If the church makes my decision with me and for me, then love decides. And if love decides, God decides.
Amanda Paxton
As I learn to delegate my formerly personal decisions into the family church model of living, it allows the chance for those around me to insert “relational stakes” into my life. These stakes form bonds of reciprocal trust between myself, and those I am surrounded by. I am finding that these “stakes” that we place in one another’s life act as “safety-nets of love” when formed and pursued with confident expectation that the Body will be there for me and I for it. This reciprocal trust acts as relational glue to the Body as a whole, as well as invites Christ into every aspect of day to day living. Robert Green
“More often than not, we simply need to figure out how to get out of God’s way in order to let Him do His community-creating work in our lives.” …“Their decisions to enter the ministry did not come as individual emotional responses to a sermon or to a highly charged camp message. The decisions were hammered out in context of a community of peers and leaders who were well aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the individual.”
I am finding that I simply need to get out of the way. Thinking back to six months ago it is nearly impossibly to really see the person I was back then. But in some ways I am still the same person. I like to be in control (of my own paradigm), in the know, in on the joke, and in on the adventure. I simply want to belong. I haven’t fully trusted the Christ, and in that I haven’t fully trusted the body. I do not like to admit this, because this means that my plan has failed, but it’s true. And so how do we get past this? How do we step out of individual crisis and into community struggle? We have to realize that we really do belong and then get out of the way. I have seen how this very reality has affected the people around me, and how when we release our decisions, worries, and struggles to each other the heaviness becomes lighter so that we are able to lean on each other and Christ during our darkest hours. The most significant decision I have made in the last 7 months was to move here (to Portland) and to be a part of the apprenticeship. At the time, I really saw those as my decisions to make, but now I see that they really weren’t mine at all. I threw myself into community, I was all in…or at least I thought I was. I still had A LOT of issues to deal with. And so these issues began to be dealt with communally. Sometimes I could appreciate it, other times, not so much. But in this I learned that I really would be nothing without this body of believers around me. So then, I choose to trust this body, but then I think that I have decided what is next on the agenda, and that it is my job to respond to the call that Christ has on my life. Is it really my decision to make? No, it is not. Joanna Miller
Decision making within the framework of church as family perhaps is the hardest reality that we have encountered yet in the journey this book has taken us on. Seeing how our western culture has distorted the strong group family that the new covenant church lived out is one thing, but consenting to practically put our personal decisions into the hands of that family is another. The activities that our church is involved in, the place where we live, and how we gather are things that I would like to determine. However, being in community is changing my own ideas of what church should look like because relationships with my brothers and sisters are starting to become more and more of a first priority. It is within those relationships that we can, together as one, envision a more perfect reflection of life as the church, and no longer do my own expectations have to be unveiled as false, leaving me with despair and disillusionment. When my paradigm reflects a lying down of personal desires, it frees up others in the body to do the same, leading to reciprocated giving. Agape love then becomes the reality and decisions as a group are no longer a hurdle to jump, but rather a joy to be experienced. Trevor Williams
Within my own personal confine, I see making decisions within the family (body of Christ) somewhat complicated but not an unexpected matter. Complicated in the sense that there are decisions of different matter and magnitudes. Those which are hard, I usually make alone and don’t include no one and those that are easy, I usually include others. But there are also instances that are the other way around. In other words, I can still make decisions alone even if I’m part of the body, its not automatic, we have to get in the habit of doing so in spite of the independence that is in our bags.
Being a part of the body though has helped me get a better understanding of how we operate as the church. Switching from independence and blood family to depending on the family of God. No longer an I but a we, no longer a one of singularity, but a one of plural. And only when we get to a point where we operate as one can we then be a community. A common-unity which is Christ. P.s. It doesn’t stop there. Mikey Romo
I’m observing that my thought processing and desires are shifting within myself. I have a habit of holding everything within me, emotions, thoughts, decisions and letting my pride control me. Pride saying: that I am capable of taking care of myself and do not need anyone else’s input or perspective or help. As my journey continues with this family I see things beginning to take shape differently within me. Not that I have arrived and am able to live this life perfectly or without struggle, but now I am finding myself fighting my selfish desires and fighting to release my pride daily. Realizing my decisions to be vulnerable to the community or to not be vulnerable affect the community, and that this family of God is not just about me an individual but it’s about us as one body in Christ. The by-product of putting the family of God first and allowing them to have a voice in my life and my voice in theirs is the fruit of the spirit. A voice that is more than just something occasional to draw from whenever I am facing a fork in the road, but one that is being breathed into me and me into it daily. In that posture of only drawing advice or help every once in awhile is me just consuming the church and not conceiving life into it. I am learning to release my fears of vulnerability and trust, and to get out of God’s way and let His Holy-Spirit work and to let this family of God invade my life. Knowing that, I now have hope in where this family is at now and what the future holds for us, because of what Christ did and is doing. Cassie Boddington
My decisions need to be made in the family of God. The journey to this point has been long and filled with much pain. My individualism lead to detrimental decisions; my entitlement lead to a broken relationship, a broken man. I am humbled and privileged to have a church family to which I can lay down my life in Christ’s name. If we truly believe in Christ incarnate, submitting my decisions to my brothers and sisters is submitting my decisions to Christ. Travis Reill
"My personal confine", my space or what I am limited to, isn't mine anymore, it's the community's and I am submitting to them and essentially to Christ through them. This affects me because I am in relationship with them and them with me and they know me, as family would, through time and experience of shared life, to know what the individual needs are. As a whole, they know the body's needs as well and inside of that, the best decision can be pursued when every best interest is in each decision, through that we can be united. As a whole we all are submitting to each one's needs and when we can take care of the community's needs then we can, as a whole, reach the “world's” needs as Christ’s body. Chanelle Freese
In the “strong-group” model the individual does not make individual decisions; the group comes together and collectively a decision will be made for the individual, a decision that will benefit the whole. The application of this has been difficult with the transformation from theory to practice. In theory I desire the church to help me make decisions in my life like job, spouse, where I live, etc. But sitting down with the body and freely laying down my own wants in each of these decisions is just not easy. There is still that voice in your head that will whisper, “If you don’t like what they decided you can just do what you want anyway.” Not listening to that voice is far more of a reward than giving into hyper-individualism and the fruit it creates. I have recently brought a decision to leadership about an upcoming trip with my dad’s congregation to rebuild a church building in Haiti. I can already see how not leaving this decision to be made on my own has affected not just myself but others as well. Normally I would have a certain level of anxiety with this decision but because I have released this to the body, I have little anxiety because I am not carrying the weight of this decision alone and whatever my brothers and sisters decide I know that decision will have been dealt with care and love. In sharing this decision there is greater opportunity for partnership between Adsideo and my dad’s church. When it could have been just me going, there is now the possibility for others to also be sent as a conduit of Christ’s encouragement. Though it is still hard at times to lay down my wants at the church’s feet, I hope that we can collectively continue to ask ourselves, “What does it mean to be the church?” Teddy Dickerson
The more we discuss our lives in the family of God, the more it seems ludicrous that we would find it an option to make decisions on our own. I do not live in a vacuum and, therefore, my individual decisions will inevitably affect another for better or for worse. Even those that do not submit to a community are affected by, or affect others by, these decisions. We have a tendency to look out for number one, however, if a decision is made to benefit the individual, in the end that is all it does. If a decision is made by the community for the community, the individuals who make up that community also share in the benefits and blessings and even more so than on their own because their celebration is more full as it is shared with the family. And thus, our opportunity to be filled and grow comes through emptying ourselves, being vulnerable to and investing in one another as the family of God. Christ is our ultimate example; he emptied himself not for himself but for his family and that the Father may be glorified. I recognize the need to humble myself to God’s family in the decisions of my life so that better resolutions can be made. Major decisions such as spouse, career, and location seem easy to recognize as those in need of input from the family. The difficult part for me is changing the way I flippantly make menial decisions so that the community, and myself as a part of it, has the opportunity to grow through even the small things. I am encouraged to know that in practicing this level of commitment to the family of God, “input from others [becomes] a way of life” (pg 170). And as I submit myself to the collective input and wisdom of the many members of the family of God, I can have confident expectation that my life will be an example to those who will follow with similar circumstances. Rachael Reill
