A New Dream: 'The Gathering' reimagined ...God has refined The Gathering and given us a clear sense of His vision for this community for the future:
OUR NAME:
We long to do life together. An hour together on a weekend isn't how we define 'church.' We are 'the church' and the church shares its life together. So yes, The Gathering is about 'gathering' and doing life together.
But at the core it is more. The Gathering is borne out of a Holy Spirit movement that strives and is driven to 'gather in' parts of Jesus' body that presently aren't connected with Him. While we do 'gather' to share our lives together and worship God in community, our purpose is about living as ambassadors, pleading with those without hope and without God to be reconciled to Him.
OUR CONVICTION:
But at the core it is more. The Gathering is borne out of a Holy Spirit movement that strives and is driven to 'gather in' parts of Jesus' body that presently aren't connected with Him. While we do 'gather' to share our lives together and worship God in community, our purpose is about living as ambassadors, pleading with those without hope and without God to be reconciled to Him.
OUR CONVICTION:
We believe God desires to recreate us from what we are now - a broken, miserable mess - into a perfect reflection of Jesus. In other words, we believe in transformation. And we believe this creative God-activity happens best and most genuinely within a committed, transparent, trusting community of people walking together tightly, exploring the relevance of Christ's life to ours. We believe life-change is real and that is why we hold firmly to an approach of nurturing relationships within small churches meeting in homes as our core 'church' experience.
OUR STORY:
We began last fall to seek God's direction for this new expression of Jesus in Tucson. Part of this seeking is exploring and experimenting. We hosted Friday evening 'events' for a while, hosting various kinds and sizes of parties, ate with lots of people, heard other's stories and shared our own, all the while allowing our lives, our home, our life-rhythm to be a labratory of learning in the spiritual eco-system of Tucson's rugged cowboy lifestyle. Much learning is still taking place.
Much seeking after God's design for us has enabled us to experience new clarity for the Gathering's future; we believe God has given us His dream for this new community of faith and we're excited to share it with you now ...
OUR DREAM:
We long to become a large network of small churches meeting weekly in homes to worship God, disciple each other, nurture community, and practice mission. This weekly gathering is our core church experience. Each church in its specific location will express tangibly some aspect of God’s Kingdom in its neighborhood. This network of churches also gathers together for weekly celebration to worship God as a larger community.
OUR APPROACH:
With trust in God and on Him depending, we are beginning a 'pilot' church in our home. Once the pilot church grows to roughly fifteen people, adds at least two new Christians to God’s Kingdom, and identifies, raises up and trains a new leader, we will multiply the one cell church into two and two into three and so on. We hope to see Jesus raise up and build a network of small, home-based churches with this approach.
OUR FOCUS:
We do not hold as canons for success buildings, budgets, or numbers. Success for us is being God’s grateful kids, submitting to Him for transformation & repair, maturity & holiness, and preparation & opportunity for mission: to bring His Gospel of grace & truth to lost, hopeless, hurting people.
