Love God | Love People | Follow Jesus
(Well, what did you expect from a church?)
We are old people and young, artists, people with disabilities, lawyers and plumbers, activists and accountants who have been captured by, and caught up in God’s Dream for the world and God’s purpose for our lives, that we see revealed in this Jesus.
Maybe we are a church for those who don’t like ‘church’. A church for those who don’t want to play religious games or be entertained but on a good day, desire to live the love that God has shown us.
Our desire as the Westcity community is to find God’s story in our stories and our stories in God’s story. Each week, we explore Holy Scripture so that it might capture our imaginations that we would be open to the Holy Spirit’s transforming work and be equipped to live God’s love. We often give a gentle opportunity for those who haven’t said yes to God’s love to do that and to explore baptism.
John 13:3-5
Jesus, well aware that the Father had entrusted everything to him, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from the supper table, took off his outer garment and, taking a towel, tied it round him. Then he poured water into a basin, and began to wash his disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel.
A number of years ago it became a “thing” to wear a bracelet asking, “what would Jesus do?” For many, including me, it became a bit of a cliché, which is a shame, because it is a fundamentally important question. The way of Jesus and the way we follow his lead is at the centre of our daily expressions of faith, for each individual and for Christian communities like Westcity. Scarily, it is probably also the way others will most clearly see His way.
In other words, what Jesus “would do” springs from the way He is and motivates individuals and communities of faith to live like-wise. One respected leader who embraced the challenge to live this way said, “For much of my life I have been trying to find ways to talk and write about the Christian life that will give witness to what is involved as God’s Holy Spirit dwells formationally in us — which is to say, the Jesus way. Only when we do the Jesus truth in the Jesus way do we get the Jesus life. I haven’t found it to be easy”
I am sure he speaks for all of us!
From the mid-nineteenth century another voice speaks similarly. Soren Kierkegaard said he was striving to find “the idea for which I can live and die’.” For him, this was to know ‘what it means to be a Christian in Christendom’” and to live that way. He was striving to live the Jesus way in his culture and encourages us, with the Spirit’s help, to love God, love others and follow Jesus in our culture. And, sometimes we also might find that it isn’t easy! But it is the way of the peaceable kingdom, which Jesus is building in and through us and we hope that it will also prove to be the Westcity way.
This series aims to:
· Invite people into thinking deeply about how the Jesus Way permeates all that is described as Christian.
· Each week highlight how we can respond honestly to the challenge that the message has invited us into.
· Motivate listeners to memorise scriptures that speak into their everyday experience.
· Encourage the Westcity community that everyone following Jesus has the Holy Spirit’s guidance to discern together what might be the Jesus Way in the sometimes complex twists and turns of life.
Home Churches and Connect Groups at Westcity
If you would like to join one of our Home Churches or know more about the various connect groups that meet throughout the week please visit our connect page https://westcitychurch.com.au/?page_id=585 or email westcitychurch@gmail.com
Come join us – you are most welcome.
The Westcity Church ‘Common Purse’ is a common fund sourced from within the Westcity community, via an annual offering.
These funds are redistributed in two ways:
1. Locally – to support those within the Westcity community, and their neighbours, who are in a financial crisis. We provide urgent and temporary provision of emergency aid to reduce immediate suffering from crisis.
2. Globally – Financial and prayer support is provided to projects that Kingdom build through practical, capacity building ways. We primarily focus on long-term relationships with development organisations providing reconstruction and development for communities living in poverty or extreme need.
https://westcitychurch.com.au/?page_id=531
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