New Family
Article by Stacey Tafao
In August of 1998, I packed everything that I would carry with me into the next season of my life into a banged-up Toyota Camry and set off along I-40 West on my way to seminary in San Francisco. I didn't have great expectations about what I would find on the other side of our country, but I had a sense of being pulled into something bigger than I was.
When I arrived, I discovered that "something bigger" was community.
In San Francisco, my dearest friends were other budding theologians and worshipers, baristas, people dying of AIDS, immigrants, artists, the uber-rich, and the tragically poor. These people became my tribe, and besides being one of the most vibrant families of Believers I've ever been a part of, they also played a powerful role in shaping my calling as a pastor. Through them, I learned the power of community as we became participants in the story of one another's redemption, restoration, and transformation.
Community is God's idea. In Genesis, the Trinity set our life together into motion with a discussion that culminated in the sentence: "Let us make man in our image."
In the book After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity, Miroslav Volf writes, "Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God."
Here at Fellowship, when we talk about New Family, this is what we mean. After God makes us into a new person, He sets us in a new family with all the rights and privileges of belonging to one another.
When I arrived, I discovered that "something bigger" was community.
In San Francisco, my dearest friends were other budding theologians and worshipers, baristas, people dying of AIDS, immigrants, artists, the uber-rich, and the tragically poor. These people became my tribe, and besides being one of the most vibrant families of Believers I've ever been a part of, they also played a powerful role in shaping my calling as a pastor. Through them, I learned the power of community as we became participants in the story of one another's redemption, restoration, and transformation.
Community is God's idea. In Genesis, the Trinity set our life together into motion with a discussion that culminated in the sentence: "Let us make man in our image."
In the book After Our Likeness: The Church as the Image of the Trinity, Miroslav Volf writes, "Because the Christian God is not a lonely God, but rather a communion of three persons, faith leads human beings into the divine communion. Communion with this God is at once also communion with those others who have entrusted themselves in faith to the same God."
Here at Fellowship, when we talk about New Family, this is what we mean. After God makes us into a new person, He sets us in a new family with all the rights and privileges of belonging to one another.
Don't rush past this. We belong to God and one another in the same way that the Father belongs to the Son, the Son belongs to Spirit, and the Spirit belongs to the Father. You matter, and your place in the family of God is permanent and unbreakable.
And, as part of the family, not only do you get to see the work of redemption, restoration, and transformation up close, but your life becomes broken bread and poured out wine on behalf of a wounded world.
In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul writes of this when he says: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."
You're not alone. You're part of a family.
This is the Good News
In 2 Corinthians 1, Paul writes of this when he says: "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort."
You're not alone. You're part of a family.
This is the Good News
Stacey Tafao
Pastor of Adult Community Life Ministry
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