Starting a New Community

Okay, I’m taking a deep breath and bracing myself and my family for what could be our greatest adventure ever….

There has been a lot of talk from friends lately about starting a fresh new community of Christ followers in Tucson based on the recent Spiritual movement in our Worship community at Pantano Christian Church. As my wife puts it “some of us want to go deeper”. Well, I think I’ve finally gotten the practical inspiration to begin this community. Or life group. Or small group. Or big small group. What ever you prefer to call it. I’m just calling it a community because I like the word.

The inspiration I received for forming this community came from a book I recently read called “Radical’ by David Platt. After reading this book and the challenging steps at the end of the book called “The Radical Experiment”, I began to see a possible framework for a group of people that want to go all the way in our walk with Christ.

The Radical Experiment is a one year program outlined in the end of the Radical book that emphasizes prayer, scripture reading, financial discipline, world and local community involvement, and getting involved in a close-knit community of fellow sojourners. Trust me, I’m not doing it justice. You need to read the book.

So here’s the deal: If you feel a stirring in your heart to explore the idea of taking the gospel seriously, taking a second look at the American Dream and contemplating what is meant by taking up your cross and really following Christ wherever He may take you and doing it in a community of like-minded flawed, broken, but brave and inspired people like yourself, then perhaps this is the time for you to start wading into the water. So here’s what I’m asking you to do:

Get a hold of the book Radical by David Platt. Here’s the website, where you can get more information about it:

http://www.radicalthebook.com/

Start reading it. It’s an amazing book. Try to read at least two chapters a week starting this weekend (November 20/21). My wife and I would love to give all of you an opportunity to meet at our house from time to time as a group to discuss the book and encourage each other and discuss the nuts and bolts of this potential community. If all goes as planned, we should be done with the book and inspired to begin the Radical Experiment by January 1^st, 2011.

At that time, there will be another open invitation to any and all persons who have read the book and are interested in seeking out a very deep, life-changing and extremely challenging, experimental and transformational period of one year. Reading the book and making your decision based upon the challenges outlined in The Radical Experience is the only requirement. Young people, older people and everyone in between are invited. By the time you finish the book, your heart will let you know what to do next.

During this year we will venture to apply the 5 steps of the Radical Experiment to ourselves and our community. We will help each other, challenge each other, pray with and for each other, worship together and keep each other accountable. You do not need to belong to a particular church to be part of this community, although we highly encourage you to belong to some church family. Our community is not a substitute for a church.

I (Dan) have already read the book Radical, and I am excited with the idea of investing myself in going deeper with Christ in this community. These are the expectations I have for myself this next year:

To be challenged in many aspects of my life.

Learn healthy self-restraint and learn how to resist unhealthy self-restraint. Taking my thoughts into captivity and allowing Christ to free me.

Pray everyday. Unceasingly.

Read scripture every day. Even if I don’t want to.

Worship everyday on my own. I should want to.

Engage in Spiritual warfare. Our enemies are not flesh and blood.

Meet once a week with the community to break bread, worship, pray and learn. 2^nd chapter of Acts.

Challenge myself financially. 2^nd chapter of Acts. It’s there, we have to talk about it and explore it. I don’t know how it works. But I want to know.

Learn to accept and understand how broken and sinful we really are. All have fallen short of the Glory of God. We had it, but we lost it.

Learn to discern spiritual things around me. Our enemies are not flesh and blood.

Learn the difference between spiritual joy and human joy (both are good). I prefer the kind that is beyond understanding.

Listen to other people’s hearts. Some of us have to learn to have better “ears to hear”.

Go out into the community and serve the poor, the hurting, the lost and the rejected. Not to mention the widow and the orphan.

Go far away from the U.S. and do the same. To the ends of the earth.

Read the entire bible in a year. I can’t share what I don’t know.

Struggle with temptation. Jesus left us His Spirit to help us.

Overcome. Jesus took the big step in allowing us to overcome. Everything we do is a reaction to His action.

Be misunderstood by friends and relatives. Jesus said this would happen.

Learn to love.

But I can’t do this alone. I don’t think anybody can.

I want you to know, I never saw myself as a leader, pastor or administrator. I don’t particularly see myself as the leader of this community. I just feel the Spirit pressing me to get the ball rolling. I just want to serve God the best I can. I think my wife feels the same way.

Know that I don’t go into this adventure with a great deal of fear and trepidation. If fact, the only thing that scares me more is what will happen to me if I don’t do this. Or even more important, what WON”T happen to me. So here I stand at a Spiritual crossroads in my life. A new beginning. And the Holy Spirit has somehow given me an uncharacteristic dose of courage to embrace this new beginning.

If you are interested in this community, please email me at AirUnderMe@gmail.com and we will start to get organized. I would like to know what time/day of the week you are willing to sacrifice to meet and support each other and the community.

God bless! Dan and Lisa Gunther