Journeying with God
Acknowledging God’s love for us, we respond to God in the way we live as individuals and community through celebrating faith, forming community and deepening discipleship.
Starting at the centre
We are a Christian community. A God community. A gathering together of people who have many differences, yet also a common focus onGod. That’s why “Journeying with God” is at the centre of our vision statement.
“Then God said “Let there be light”; and there was light” Genesis 1:3
We want to recognise that everything that is flows God.
We want to recognise that everything we do as BRMC community needs to flow from God.
We want to recognise that everything we are as human beings, and as Christian people, needs to flow out of our journeying with God.
Entering into the journey
In many ways it’s a cliche
We are all on a journey.
We are all individual.
We all have different lives.
Different working patterns.
Attend different schools, clubs and community groups.
We have different opinions and ideas.
Different political allegiances.
But yet, I don’t think journeying is merely about individualism and difference.
There is no longer Jew or Greek,
there is no longer slave or free,
there is no longer male or female;
“for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” Galatians 3:28
To positively enter into the journey is also to encounter other people along the way, to discover others who may appear different to us are also heading on a similar journey and so we journey together, we support each other, we share experiences with each other.
Entering the journey takes willingness. YES.
Entering the journey takes effort. YES.
Entering the journey is worth it? ABSOLUTELY.
To Journey is to be Moving
I think to journey is to recognise and accept that through entering into the journey, we don’t stay in one place. I went to London a few weeks ago, and to do so I had to get on a train. As the train moved, the world around me passed by as I looked out of the window. To reach my destination, I had to be moved. To journey is to enter into a process of movement and transformation.
For me and my life, journeying with God has led to significant geographical movements, but journeying with God is also internal, about allow God to move in me, helping me learn and grow and change and mature in life and faith.
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” Romans 12:2
For us as BRMC, journeying with God is also about allow God to move in us, to help us learn and grow and change and mature in life and faith and mission.
To journey with God is thus to willingly enter into a process of God’s movement and transformation; in us, with us and for us.
Journeying with God who is for us
“If God is for us, who is against us?” Romans 8:31
Paul is careful to use us here. Paul gets that journeying with God is not an individual and isolated process, but a journey that is done as community. Just as God’s people journeyed together out of Egypt, around the wilderness and into the promised land, God’s love for us continues, yes as individuals, but also as the community of God’s people – us.
Journeying with God is to journey as individuals within a community. This should be an exciting journey for us. A journey of discovering, of deepening faith, of joy and celebration, of community that values each other, loves each other and cares deeply for each other.
Journeying with God who is before us
God is love.
God loves us.
God loves you.
Phrases I hope we’ve all heard countless times in our lives.
Phrases I hope we also know with conviction and certainty, to be true.
God is for us, and so God goes before us (prevenient grace, see “What’s Your Story”). We journey with a God who has already taken the journey. God, in Christ, came to earth and lived as one of us. Suffered at the hands of humanity and died. But then Christ overcame the powers of sin and death, Christ rose again.
“It is finished” John 19:30
Through Christ, who has already overcome the powers that bind us, who has already completed the journey, we are invited into that journey too, to journey with the God who knows our destination, and will walk with us as we travel on, by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Journeying as Responding
To journey with God is therefore not a passive thing.
To journey with God takes effort and energy, willingness and intentionality.
To journey with God is to participate with God.
Our participation, (i.e. our faith), is our response.
Faith is not what we have to have to earn our way into God’s kingdom.
No, God is for us, and in Christ it is finished, and the kingdom of God has come.
“The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” Mark 1:15
It is because the kingdom has come that our response to God can be to participate within the very being of God. Through the Spirit, the very presence of God bring with us, we can invited into the intimate relationship that is the Godhead – Father, Son and Spirit – Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.
So, what does all this mean for us at BRMC?
At heart, it means we believe that everything we do as BRMC community is a response to, and a participation in God. The God who journeys with us as we journey with God. Journeying with the God who loves us, is for us and goes before us.
Is that the reality?
That’s the challenging question we continue to seek to discern together.
But I hope and pray with all my heart that it is the reality that we are in the least journeying towards.
Questions for reflection and discussion
Have you found this article helpful?
What would you add if you were to talk about Journeying with God?
What do you disagree with? Let’s get talking!
Below are some questions to get us thinking, praying and talking together!
- What movements has your personal journey with God taken?
- How do you see God moving us as a Christian community at BRMC?
- How would you explain your journey with God to someone who didn’t know anything about the Christian faith?
- Are there things that God is saying have fulfilled their journey and reached their destination within the life of BRMC?
- Are there new journeys to new destinations that need to begin as BRMC?
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