A Spirit-Enabled Community

I am a fan of impressionist paintings. Author Malcolm Gladwell explains how the impressionist painters became a movement.It “didn’t begin because one genius took up painting impressionistically and, like the Pied Piper, attracted a trail of followers. Instead, Pissarro and Degas enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts at the same time; then, Pissarro met Monet and, later, Cézanne at the Académie Suisse; Manet met Degas at the Louvre; Monet befriended Renoir at Charles Gleyre’s studio; and Renoir, in turn, met Pissarro and Cézanne; and soon enough everyone was hanging out at the Café Guerbois, trading ideas and egging each other on, and sharing and competing and dreaming, all together, until something radical and entirely new emerged.” (Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia)That may help us grasp how it is that the church is to bring the kingdom of God to manifest itself in communities all across the globe. When we gather, we each bring something to contribute, and in that sharing of our bits and pieces of the whole, encouraging one another, “something radical and entirely new” emerges. That “new” thing is the work of the Spirit, the Kingdom of God.Join us as we continue our series Becoming a Spirit-Formed Community as we examine the role of the Spirit’s empowering with various gifts in the life of the church.