Jesus-Looking Community: The Goal of Every Church & Small Group
When Jesus came 2000 years ago, he did not just offer a message of salvation that resulted in a different belief structure. He offered a different way of life—called the kingdom of God—that included a different kind of vision for community. The Jesus-looking kingdom was not something anyone would have expected. No one—this cannot be reiterated enough—no one could have pre- dicted that God’s way would look like self-sacrificial love hanging on a cross. The king the nation of Israel expected was not supposed to die. The Israelites of the first century expected a normal king—their word for this was “Messiah,” which is christos in the Greek New estament—but that’s not what they got. And most did not see what was going on. John put it this way: “The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John ...