Our Quest
For The Community of Adsideo, relationships are central. Together we pursue to discover four relational mysteries: How does God desire us to posture ourselves in relationship to Him, in relationship to others, in relationship to our environments, and in relationship to our past, present and future? We invite you to come along and join our quest.
Distinctives
- Devoted to living the God Life through the exploration of experience, reason, tradition and God’s narrative
- To be messengers of hope, peace and grace in the lives of those we intersect
- Maintain solidarity with the poor and sojourners of our worlds
- Journey focused and process oriented
- Engaged in the art of living in community
- Demonstrate a new sense of unity amongst the community of believers
Life in Community
In our search through the Scriptures and history of the early church in the pursuit of how the Lord might have us live as His people in this place in time, we have found that we must start in His Word, not Western culture, to drive our practical priorities in this life. Though we have placed great value on the example of those who have gone before us and those who journey next to us in other congregations, we do not make assumptions that American church history or societal norms necessarily represent the best way to answer His call. In seeking these Scriptures, we found a number of statements made by the Lord that drove us to this “life together” story that we have chosen. The first of these was simple, but not easy: Jesus calls us to lay down our lives and follow Him, to find our lives by losing them. America’s celebration of individualism, achievement and personal dream-following seems to lead Christians down the opposite path, where ministry becomes a 9-5 job and having a happy marriage and good children defines arrival at Christ-likeness. The part that biological families play into this American dream was another piece that confounded us as we stepped deeper into His Word. Jesus seems to redefine what family ought to look like as He calls the church to take care of each other. Western society’s solution for the poor, disabled, abandoned, sick and elderly is institutionalization. We believe there must be something more to God’s call for us to care for these and bear their burdens as our own. Just as those who are disabled or sick cannot go home at night and take a break from their affliction, we believe we ought not take a break from their affliction either. It is in the practicing of this life that we have discovered that all of our own afflictions are cared for in a much greater way when we surrender to a life of care to those who suffer. It is in this life that we discover that we too, are sufferers, and that those we care for begin to become our caretakers, representing Christ to us as they teach us patience, love, and every other fruit of the Spirit. We commit to one another in this radical way because we find that it is much more difficult to hide behind our false selves when they are daily exposed to those who know us well, and more importantly, to those who know Christ well. It is this daily practice of vulnerability and sacrifice that we hope will confuse this world and make true Jesus’ hope that they will know we are Christians by the love that we demonstrate for one another.
Membership Commitment of The Community of Adsideo
I come today to join a local expression of the Church, whose essence is the body of those on whom the call of God rests, to partner with the Spirit and others, who become witnesses to the grace and truth of God.
Seeking to unite with our heritage we believe that we too are to follow in the Way of Jesus as He came and made his presence known in His neighborhood. We will embrace the opportunity to live in relationship to our neighbor as we re-present Him in the proximity of our parish. We also value and recognize the vision for membership of Dr. Phineas F. Bresee and agree with him when he said, “Church membership saves us from being a tramp and provides a home for its privileges and joys.”
We recognize… the purpose of the Church is to live a life of love as we pour courage into one another, sacrificially serving and giving, revealing to the principalities and powers of this world that the complex wisdom of God would be made known through His Church.
Without reservation we hold to the proclamation of Jesus, Peter, Stephen and all the Apostles that Jesus is the Christ, the son of the Living God and is “The Way, The Truth and The Life.”
With absolute abandon we commit our lives to seeking His Kingdom and His Righteousness through follower-ship, as we commit to make Him the priority of life. Giving Him all of our affairs discovering His desire, we will quest to live inside of His relational mystery as He redeems His creation.
We commit to all, despite the expenditure of our personal calendars, energy, and finances, until we all reach unity in the faith, knowledge of the Son, becoming mature, and to attaining to the fullness of Christ.
We realize that we have responded to a call to die to self, and to die in order that we may belong to the One who issues the call and to those who make a similar response. Knowing we are gathered together to be committed to Christ and to one another in the living of a common-life. We will share in the health of the whole and share in the sickness of the whole.
We are united in this life through the Spirit that was given at Pentecost in order to be on mission, but it is as we mission that we move into unity of our heart and mind, that we would become one as we live into the gift given us in Jesus Christ.
We will practice the exploration of the depth of the Spiritual life of devotion through the disciplines of daily prayer. We will daily allow the scriptures to read us, growing in love for each other and all people. Together we will gather to serve and worship, we will be a vital contributing member, we will give our gifts beginning at a tithe of our incomes, and will be committed to confessing and reconciling our commitments one to another.
We live our life publicly allowing others to observe, and when asked we will be prepared to give a reason for the Hope we have in Christ Jesus. We are committed to our parish and take responsibility for the vitality of the health and welfare of our neighbors, as we share our common lives.
We believe in the comprehensive inspiration of the Scriptures, that they are divinely inspired, and inerrantly reveal the will of God concerning all things necessary to the Salvation of mankind.
We agree that our primary vocation is to enter into covenant relations with others who have also met this Christ. We also understand that we cannot belong to Christ without belonging to His community, or to the community, without belonging to Him in whom it coheres.
~ Just the Beginning~
