Koinos Community Church - The Latest v02.04

The Latest v02.04

What is your favorite thing in the whole world? Your 48 inch Phillips flatscreen? That sweater that just perfectly accentuates, you know? Your prized collection of original Bee Gees records? Yeah buddy! Barry Gibb. Barry Gibb.

Whatever your favorite thing is, that one thing that you would hypothetically rescue in a fire, I'm sure its good times. Whether you are watching the Rounds from Sweet 16 to the Final Four, admiring yourself in a perfectly lit mirror, or remembering those white bell bottomed pants and the way that silver chain hung just right in your chest hair, I'm sure it's fun. But maybe your enjoyment is not completely from these products, but from the stories they tell? Maybe?

Think about it. Everything we value tells us a story that we really like to believe.

The TV? It says you can indulge your male desire to compete and win and live high drama, while comfortably living the high life with a glass of (whatever) in your very own living room. You can enter the world of real masculinity all the while enjoying the pleasures of wings and avoiding exercise.

The sweater? It says you are beautiful, a looker, special, somebody that stands out. It says it doesn't matter what that guy said about you in 11th grade, or that you occasionally don't feel very talented. It says you matter. You are beautiful.

The Bee Gees? Okay, this is a tough one. I guess Stayin Alive says the 70's were the summit of popular American culture. That you lived it, you were there, when "it" was really alive. That college kids today, those trying to grow out their hair, and wearing their 70's -esque t-shirts and frayed jeans, they are the real posers. They just wish they lived when you did. Okay, I tried. Really it says you have a bad taste in music.

We are attempting to be Spirit-led story-tellers at Koinos. Through Sunday mornings, through Community Groups, through service projects, through spontaneous relationships, we are trying to tell a story, The story, which makes the most sense, and brings the most life out of those who hear it and believe it. We don't offer a story of prosperity, or pure individualism, or doing whatever you want, or that this life is all there is, so you might as well get all you can out of it.

We tell a story that all human life matters, that we are flesh and Spirit, that there is a good Creator who made us for Him, that what we typically want to do, isn't always the best for us to do. But there is another way, another path, another relationship, another story that is deeper, and wiser, and just plain better. If the story is believed, it always has a happy ending for us, and those around us.

The official leaders at Koinos work hard, through all of our different activities, to tell this story in a way that makes sense to hearers. They put in many hours, I think they are they getting batter all the time. More people are listening. More are adopting this story as the story that makes sense of their lives.

But the best story-tellers are "average" people at Koinos. When you are friendly, when you greet someone who joins us for the first time, when you invite someone over, when you volunteer to help another, you are telling a story that always rings loud and clear. People who have come to see and live their lives according to a different script, a God script, typically tell me that the story most made sense and was most compelling when it came from you. I and other "official" people might give some kind of introduction to the tale, but who you are, and how you interact with others, is what makes the story come alive. The narrative then begins to make sense. The telling sprouts legs and it is told over and over and over.

When you read the drama of the Bible, the rescuer is Jesus Christ, but the main vehicle is the community of those who believe. The story is believed or dis-believed by what listeners hear from your lives.

Everything is telling a story, giving a perspective on life. Your home entertainment system, that cotton sweater, even the Gibb brothers. Yes, even the Gibb brothers.

What story do you believe? What story are people hearing?

Love you all! Have a great weekend!

Brian

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