Common life

Loving one another

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. John 13:34
We want to live out this commandment which Jesus gave his disciples. Knowing that Christ’s love for us included going to the cross, we expect that loving each other may demand real and costly sacrifice. We love in this way hoping that by doing so “the world may know that you are my disciples” (John 13:35). We hope that self-sacrificing love might be one of the most obvious characteristics of our life together. Through loving one another we seek to provide a place where each is well loved, and to draw others to Christ and his church.Some of the concrete ways we seek to love each other include:

  • keeping the commitments expressed in our covenant
  • seeing each other as family
  • delighting in (liking) each other and enjoying time together
  • living in a households
  • encouragement and accountability
  • praying for each other
  1. laughing and weeping with each other
  • living out the “one anothers” (honoring, submitting to, encouraging, reverencing, etc.)

Common Life

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” – Matthew 6:33
Thanksgiving retreat with friendsThanksgiving Retreat with Friends
The good news of the gospel means that we can now join a new social, political, economic and spiritual order. The Church is meant to be that new order. As Westerners deeply trained in the habits of individualism, we have a hard time living into that new order. To help ourselves understand that radical call of God, we sometimes say that “church ought to be the organizing principle of our lives.” Ways we seek to live that out include:

Common Decision Making

  • use of time
  • jobs
  • openness to counsel concerning dating, marriage, and children
  • stability and calls to go elsewhere

Common Time

  • quality time for one another and the church
  • meals
  • calendar
  • meetings

Common space

  • living together
  • common decisions about living arrangements
  • openness to living with who God gives us, and where God puts us

Common Money

“All who believed were together and had all things in common.” Acts 2:44

One of the primary alternative gods in American culture is money. We want put our trust in God rather than in money. Toward that end we commit ourselves to:

  • a spirit of generosity
  • shared finances
  • a similar standard of living
  • helping those in need