Gospel communities are a very important at the Journey.  While you will always be welcome to worship with us on the weekend, you will only get a small amount of the benefit that is available through connecting deeply at the Journey.

Gospel Communities are where everyday life is shared with Gospel intentionality.

What is a Gospel Community?

Definition:  A gospel community is a group of  6-20 adults plus children who have committed to sharing their lives together for the sake of  the gospel.

The gospel is the good news about the work of God in Christ to rescue sinful people from the penalty and power of sin so that they might live in relationship with Him. The gospel, as the good news, becomes the central feature of these communities.

The Gospel implies that mission should be the organizing principle of these communities.  Since the gospel is primarily news, the   implication is that it is news that needs to be told. When we consider the content of the news, we would have to agree that news this good must go out to everyone who doesn’t truly know it.

A Gospel community includes many if not all of the things people recognize as a community or small group—things like Bible studies, social justice groups, therapy groups, accountability groups, fellowship groups, educational opportunities, or weekly meeting. However, they are not primarily any one of these things. Being part of a gospel community means sharing ordinary life with others around everyday mission.  Many of your friends, co-workers, family, and neighbors need Jesus, and a gospel community is designed to demonstrate the gospel’s implications to them.

What do Gospel Communities do?

• They take seriously the great commission of “making disciples” by radically reorienting their lives around mission in community.
• They take seriously the impact of the gospel on every part of a person’s life.
• They learn to speak the truth of the gospel in love to one another thus contributing to a person’s growth as a disciple.
• They hold one another accountable to grow in the gospel.
• They learn to share their lives with one another in such a way that being together (serving together, eating together, doing mission together, cleaning house together, raising children together, etc.) becomes the new normal.
• They study the implications of the gospel together.
• They intentionally serve their larger communities by identifying gospel needs and meeting them.
• They meet together weekly to eat, laugh, pray, and work through the implications of the weekly message so they can work it out in community.

Gospel Community do what they do for “the sake of the gospel”. We agree with Biblical writers that we are blessed to be a blessing.  We share our lives in such a way that it is conducive for the gospel’s advancement of Christ’s rule in our hearts, in our neighborhoods, cities, counties, and states. We want the news of the gospel to affect change in people groups and geographic regions where we have a growing influence.

From day one, Jesus shared his life with 12 ordinary men and engaged them in a culture of other-centered mission. He trained men and women for mission through example.  In the book of Acts, we see thousands of Christians   doing the everyday things of life together. They were engaging in distinctly Christian activity together, and many were being influenced by their example. In the New Testament letters, the members of these early churches were given instruction that only made sense if they were living together in community. A substantial portion of the instructions in the N.T. letters cannot be lived out in the context of once a week, large group Sunday gathering.

Practically, mission happens in the normal, everyday context of our lives. If  we are to live our normal lives with Gospel intentionality, we must show you what this looks like and invite you live out those rhythms with us.

Gospel Communities are important at The Journey, and we want to invite you to join one as you settle in.