CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT?

Five years ago today, my brother and I drove out of Grand Rapids, MI in an overloaded moving truck and headed west for Denver, CO. A few weeks before I had accepted the opportunity to serve as the lead pastor at Denver Community Church (DCC). This feels like my first milestone with our faith community. 

The best way to describe my feelings is to say that I am eternally thankful to be a part of such an amazing faith community in which I can journey alongside such an amazing group of men and women, and spend hours everyday doing what I love with people I love. 

As I have reflected on this anniversary I came across something I read to our faith community a few days after being at DCC when we met on a Wednesday night. It was my first meeting with those who called DCC home outside of our Sunday gatherings. Before the meeting I thought, prayed and considered what I would say as the "new pastor."

As I read this again, I realized that five years later, by God's grace, we have moved far closer to the kind of church we imagined together that night. My prayer is that five years from now we will be even closer. 

Written on July 11, 2007:

I want to take some time and just imagine together. Remember what it was like to imagine? You all have been through a difficult transition … any transition from one pastor to the next is difficult. You were in survival mode. My wife and I have been through the valleys together, and in those times you do not dream or imagine. You simply survive.

Tonight I want to call you out of those shadows into the light of day, and invite you to dream with me; to imagine what could be. To see what is and, more importantly, to see what could be.

We are poised to begin a study of the Sermon on the Mount. We need to understand that this teaching of Jesus was a lightning rod in His day. It was groundbreaking, threatening to the powers that be, would have been considered treasonous by the Roman Government and was an invitation to a new world, a new way of living. Jesus was launching a revolutionary movement.

So I want us to dream together tonight, and ask you some questions about what it might be like to be a faith community of whom it is said, “They are a part of the revolution that Jesus started 2,000 years ago.”

What would it be like if we were a faith community who said that we were about the Kingdom of Heaven? What if people knew that our chief concern was not possessions, buying, selling, making tons of money or fame and fortune? What if we did not by into the lie that empire has fed to us called the "American Dream" of health, wealth and happiness, but lived as people who shared everything and gave to those who had need? What if we were people who chose to be among the poor, the outcasts and the least of these, because that is who the Kingdom belongs to?

What would it be like if we were a faith community who lived within the darkest places in our city? The whorehouses, the porn shops, the crack neighborhoods, and were seen as a city that was shining on a hill that cannot be hidden?

What would it be like if we were a faith community who were concerned about life? Not just life before birth, but after as well? What if we were known as people who cared for the widow, the orphan, and the immigrant within our gates? What if we were people who were known to be proactive about all issues concerning the health of all people and the quality of life for all people in this world?

What would it be like if we were a faith community who were known to promote peace and wholeness in the lives of people across our world? What if instead of retaliating when we were done wrong we became a creative group of peacemakers who said, “I will not fire back, but I will respond to you in peace and love so that you might know about the God who is in heaven?” What if we were people who loved those who are considered to be our enemies … what if we prayed for them and cared for them?

What would it be like if we were a faith community who was spoken of as people of prayer and worship? What if people said, “Those people … when you are with them it is like you are in this boundless conversation with God?” What if, when we are together, there is a tangible goodness like someone else is present with us - a deep, abiding sense of love, peace, grace and compassion?

What would it be like if we were a faith community who was known to be generous? Who gave out of our poverty? Who was known as a place that has much because we give much? What if we not only give away food, but taught others how to make it so they can teach others, who teach others?

What would it be like if we were a faith community who was known as safe? What if we were a place where those with addictions, prostitutes, criminals, gang members could come and receive a warm hug and be welcomed? What if we were a place where a person with no home sat next to a wealthy person with five homes? What if no matter what you had done in the past you knew you were accepted just as you are?

What would it be like to be this kind of faith community? What would happen if together we performed and proclaimed the Good News of Jesus Christ? What would happen to this city if we were this kind of faith community? What would people say? What would people do?

What is it like to dream about this? 

If we are this kind of community, the good news is that people will not see us, they will see Jesus. Paul reminds us that we are his body. Instead of him having two eyes, two, ears, two hands, two feet, and one mouth .., he now has millions of eyes, millions of ears, millions of hands, millions of feet, and millions of mouths. 

If we are this kind of faith community, when people see us they will say, “They are a part of the revolution that Jesus started 2,000 years ago.” 

Can you imagine that?