Our mission at The Table has everything to do with the presence of Christ: Encountering, Embodying, and Extending…
- We encounter Christ in the Word and at the Table on Sundays,
- We embody Christ in Table Groups and small communities during the week, and
- We extend Christ into the world as we engage our neighborhoods and workplaces as the people of God.
The EMBODYING part of this mission has felt particularly challenging for me lately. It doesn’t really happen without physical proximity. We can’t embody Christ unless our bodies are in the same space for some extended time.
But it seems there are all kinds of forces, external cultural pressures and internal personality tendencies, that pull me away from presence and proximity with others, conspiring to keep me isolated and inert.
Add to this the fact that right now our church is made of people who are quite spread out geographically across the Indianapolis area. We come from Fishers and Broad Ripple and Bates-Hendricks and Greenwood and everywhere in between!
Our vision has always been to create communities all over Indianapolis that are cultivating a real way of life and prayer together, and there’s really no other way to do that besides finding ways for our bodies to be together in the same space as often as possible.
So this is a tension for us as we grow. Building a community takes time together, and I often wish it was easier for us to do this. I don’t have a prescription to “fix” this, but I’m confident that God is present and at work in the midst of our geographical diversity, and that the Spirit will lead us into flourishing if we’ll listen and trust.
So let’s continue to discern how God is at work in our midst, and not grow weary in pursuing a way of life together that can grow and multiply for the sake of others, because the last thing I want is for The Table to turn into a mere dispensary for “religious goods and services” for folks who happen to stop by.
Let us continue to draw near to God and to one another, seeking to keep in step with the Spirit this summer!
Grace and peace,
Fr. Ben
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