Renew’s first public gathering

The unique vision of Renew is to see fresh expressions and fresh extensions of God’s kingdom actively at work in Lansdale & the North Penn region.

 

Part of that unique vision means de-emphasizing (though certainly not un-emphasizing) Sunday in order to re-emphasize living out the gospel rhythms Monday through Saturday. Simply put, we’re more concerned about embracing the life of Jesus as a way of life rather than simply a church service to go to once a week. This translates into a conviction that we want to train, equip and launch people before we launch programs (most specifically our Sunday gatherings).

 

Practically, this translates into a few unique ways:

 

(1) We’ve placed a great deal of time and energy into developing our house churches.

 

These smaller Jesus communities meet throughout the region on different nights of the week and help us to live out the ways of Jesus through exploring the Scriptures, serving in mission and celebrating and partying together. People are being formed and shaped and are catching the more holistic vision of Renew as a movement, not just a Sunday service.

 

(2) We’ve placed a great deal of time and energy in serving and engaging Lansdale and the surrounding communities in official and unofficial ways.

 

We’ve made an intentional effort develop our oikos (a Greek word that means ’sphere of influence’). Specifically, we’ve been involved in opportunities to serve at Manna on Main, the Boys and Girls Club, develop a team of volunteers to start the Lansdale Farmers Market, host a few doubt :: nights, participate in area food drives benefitting the poor, host prayer walks around our communities, plan a Forum on Suburban Poverty and host clean up days the park around the Kugel Ball and Main Street on a regular and ongoing basis.

 

(3) We have held off on holding public community gatherings for the past several months.  

 

We believe that regular public community gatherings are important, but we want to make sure we keep these gatherings in proper perspective.

 We’ve decided to take a slow, intentional approach.

 We’ve been listening to God, discerning His vision for this faith community, been involved in each other’s lives and strategically focusing on ways to be a blessing to the community.

 We want our regular public gatherings to be an extension of our already existing Monday-through-Saturday mission, birthed naturally out of what God is already doing.

We want to do this rather than start with a weekly event that everything in our church orbits around.

By doing this we’re trying to plant the flag outside of the four walls of the church. We want to plant it out in the world and rally around it there.

 

A Dual Expression of Church

 

We believe that we grow, mature and live in community best in what we call a ‘dual expression of church’: smaller Jesus communities (house churches) and large public gatherings (all of our house churches and others interested in being a part of Renew).

 

Our house churches have been up and running for about six months now. It’s been exciting to see all that God has done in these smaller Jesus communities.

 

Now we sense it is appropriate for us to move forward with a regularly held public community gathering. But instead of starting out by holding these gatherings on a weekly basis we will be hosting public community gathering once a month for the next six months.

 

Our house churches will continue to meet weekly while our public gatherings will meet monthly. After six months we anticipate that we will begin to have weekly public gatherings.

 

Our first public gathering will be on Sunday morning April 19 at 10 am at Marjeane’s Catering (320 S Broad Street in Lansdale) on the corner of Broad and Hancock near Saxbys Coffee.  And parents: we’ve got stuff planned for the kids, too.

 

Our first public gathering does not signal the “launch” of Renew (we’ve already been up and running for a while now with our launch team meetings, house churches and community events) but a natural progression of our vision.

 

Who is invited to come to this gathering?

 

Our gatherings are open to the public – anyone who is interested in being a part of our faith community is welcome to come.

 

We have one rule at Renew though: no perfect people are allowed.  If you’re looking to find out more about the intriguing person of Jesus and how he matters in our everyday lives while meeting other people who desire to do the same, we’d love to have you join us.

 

You won’t see ads in the newspaper about our gatherings nor will we be mailing out thousands of slick fliers to neighborhoods inviting people to attend our church. We’ll post it here (and maybe on Facebook and Twitter) and, most importantly, through word of mouth. (So if you know of anyone who might be interested in checking out what we’re doing on the 19th feel free to invite them as well).

 

If you’re interested in attending, there are a few things we’d like you to know about us first:

 

[-] We’re a faith community for skeptics + dreamers. If you’re skeptical of organized religion or aren’t sure what to think of the person of Jesus, we think this might be a place of belonging for you. And/or if you’re a dreamer (you dream of a world where God loves, cares for and is actively involved in renewing His world) we’d love for you to come join us, too.

 

[-] If you’re currently a part of another faith community we strongly encourage you to stay right where you are. We don’t desire to see ‘church transplants’ at Renew. Our vision is unique; we realize we’re a different kind of faith community than what people have come to expect of “church.” We would much rather grow slowly with people who are not currently connected anywhere than to grow rapidly because people left other churches to be a part of ours.

 

If you’re longing to be a part of a group of less-than-perfect people who desire to experience grace, be ourselves, pay attention to God and who are in the process of learning to respond appropriately, we’d love to have you join us – regardless of where you are in your faith journey.

 

If you have questions don’t hesitate to contact us at info@renewcommunity.org

 

Come join us on April 19.