Breaking Ground
What clique did you belong to in middle or high school? For example: jocks, musicians, theater, punks, nerds, etc. What drew you to this group of people?
The Dig
This Sunday, we began our new series Boundless Church, where we’re exploring what it means for Element3 to become a centered-set community. As a reminder:
- A bounded-set church defines who’s included by whether or not they share a set, clearly defined, & strict list of similarities (the same doctrinal beliefs, race, socioeconomic status, political views, etc); while excluding those who deviate from these shared characteristics in any way.
- A centered-set church defines who’s included solely by their relationship to a shared center (in this case, Jesus Christ). Moreover, it directs members to focus less on assimilating to a clear set of shared characteristics & more on whether they are moving towards & becoming more like their shared center.
Though more ambiguous & challenging, we believe that this centered-set idea better reflects the kind of community Jesus called his disciples to create.
Why do you think it’s easier to make bounded-set vs. centered-set communities? Are the reasons you identify connected more to positive or negative impulses from our human condition?
Do you think most of the churches that you’ve been a part of reflect a bounded or centered-set vision of community? In the bounded-set churches you’ve seen, what boundaries were most often drawn around Jesus & used to exclude people from the community? How did this impact the people being excluded?
Next, read Acts 10. This is one of the most interesting & challenging texts in the New Testament. In it, God reaches out to & moves in the life of Cornelius, the last person a 1st century Israelite would expect God to call or invite into His Kingdom. As a Roman Centurion, Cornelius was, in the eyes of an average Israelite:
- A political enemy & oppressor
- A cultural & social heathen
- A spiritually unclean & impure Gentile
- A ethnic & racial alien
However, despite these boundary markers, God uses this vision about declaring clean what was previously considered ceremonially unclean by the Law to confront Peter, the leader of the early Church, over believing that these labels can be used to judge whether God could not or would not be at work in the life of another human being. Then, dramatically, God bestows His Spirit on Cornelius, accepting him into Christ’s movement even though he hasn’t yet changed anything in his life. In doing so, God shatters Peter’s perceptions of who’s in & who’s out of God’s Kingdom, replacing them with a vision of the Church where the presence & work of Jesus alone defines what it means to be included in the People of God.
How would this experience have been provocative to Peter as a 1st century Israelite?
What is God trying to get Peter to realize about how he judges who & how God works in the lives of other people? What mindset does God want Peter to embrace instead?
Think about how this story can help guide us as a church as we move throughout this series.
Who would be your “Cornelius”? That is, what kind of person would you consider fully outside of what God’s doing in the world or as being entirely worthy of exclusion from full-participation in the Church?
How does this story challenge such gatekeeping when it comes to Jesus & God? How might it challenge us to reconsider our attitude, postures, & actions when it comes to those we’ve identified?
What boundaries do you think still exist within E3 today? How might this story & centered-set church idea transform how we think about, enact, &, deconstruct such boundaries in our community?
What do you need to change in order to help E3 better live into this vision of becoming a truly centered-set community?
Coming Out of the Hole
During each week of this series, set aside time to reflect on your own struggles with creating boundaries & excluding people from Jesus & his community.
- What’s your history with this week’s topic? In your experience, has this been used as a boundary of exclusion in the Church?
- Where do you struggle to fully embrace those who differ from you when it comes to this topic? Do your attitudes & treatment of them reflect Christ or our world more?
- How can you humbly adjust your posture towards this topic over the course of this coming season in order to embrace a more Christlike one towards it? How can this help E3 further live into its vision of being a centered-set church?
Journal, reflect, & pray on how God might be speaking to you through each week’s teaching. Share your experience with your growth group next week!
Additional Resources*
TheBibleProject.com
Centered-Set Church: Discipleship & Community Without Judgmentalism by Mark D. Baker
The Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning
Coming Up This Week:*
Sunday, July 14th: Join us next Sunday as we continue our series Boundless Church!* Please see mye3.org for details.