Hello there! My name is Melinda Pearce. I’ve been a big fan of Love Wins/friend of Hugh’s for a while, and I’m now joining him on this blog to help spread the word about all things Love Wins (you’ll see news from me about once a month).

Without further ado, let’s get to the exciting stuff ~

Love Wins Benefit Party on 3/21
The Love Wins family invites YOU to celebrate with us the evening of Sunday, March 21! We are are becoming a self-standing, legal nonprofit, which will provide some perks we couldn’t receive before. Plus, Love Wins is featured in the newly released book, Will Jesus Buy Me A Double-Wide?, by Karen Spears Zacharias (and she’s coming to the party!).

• What: Food, fellowship, live music, swag, raffle prizes…did we say party?!
• When: March 21, 7-10pm
• Where: 224 Polk Street in Raleigh (Meymandi Theatre at the Murphey School, a.k.a. Burning Coal Theater’s downtown performance space)
• More Details Here

(We are in need of some help with supplies, promotion, etc., so stay tuned for more info about that soon.)

Love Wins on Facebook
We’re finally on! You can now find us at www.facebook.com/LoveWinsMinistries. Thanks to the many of you who have already become a fan…tell your friends!

…And lastly, here’s an excerpt of a review of Karen’s new book, Will Jesus Buy Me A Double-Wide?:

One of the most heart-wrenching stories was about a Marine who feeds the homeless, not so he can preach the gospel, but because it is the gospel. The poem “Being Homeless” by Hugh Hollowell will open your eyes as it speaks truth where assumptions run rampant.

Read the Review | Learn More About the Book

In our little experiment we call (for lack of a better term) The Gathering, one of the things we hold dear is the idea that those of us who claim to follow Jesus should eat together regularly. There are several reasons for this, among them being:

The first church ate together.

The first Jesus followers were always eating. Seriously; look at how much bread breaking they are doing, all of Paul’s railings on table etiquette, The Emmaus story, Acts Chapter 2, etc. These folks were eating. And this was not incidental to what they did; rather, this is what they did. It was not in addition to “church stuff’, this was church stuff.

Jesus tells us to do it.

Do this in remembrance of me. Do what in remembrance of me? When Jesus said this, he was at a Passover meal. That happens once a year; Did he mean “When you have the Passover meal”? The early Jesus followers did not think so, as I pointed out above. They were eating together as a part of worship all the time. No, the first church took it to mean “Whenever you have a meal in common, do it in remembrance of Jesus”. And so do we.

Eating together echoes Jesus stories

Jesus had a lot to say about food. Jesus fed the five thousand, with tons left over. Jesus fed the four thousand on another day, again with tons left over. Jesus turns water into wine, and there much left over. We are told by Jesus how to act at banquets (take the worse seat for ourselves). We are told who to invite (the blind and the beggar). The Kingdom of God is often compared to a banquet or a feast. The Passover meal itself tells us that God will provide liberation for his people. Matthew 25 tells us that, in some way, our eternal destinies are tied to what we do with food. The examples are near endless.

Sharing food says something about what we believe.

When we eat together, it is making an economic statement: There is enough. It says we depend on each other. It says we can all contribute. It shows us that God made a world of abundance. It says that in the Kingdom of God, no one has to go hungry.

These are a few reasons why we make it a point to share food on occasion. Yesterday was one of those occasions.

There were our usual folks, plus some folks we invited for the first time. We sat down together, white and black, rich and poor, male and female. Many of us brought things — all of our regulars contributed.

There were burritos, soft tacos, hard tacos. There was a ton of refried beans and Spanish rice. For desert, we had huge chocolate chip cookies. We sat and ate, and talked and laughed. For the newcomers, we shared a bit about what we are looking to do. We invited them to come and be a part of us, to share their lives with us and to join us on this journey of following Jesus. There were a lot of questions, most of which were answered better than I could have done it by the regulars.

Here we are, hanging out and chatting before we eat.

Note: I keep getting asked when we will open it up to ‘outsiders’. The answer is still “I am not sure”. It is a lot like going to Grandma’s house. You love doing it, you get a lot out of it, but if you put 20 strangers in the living room, it changes everything. Right now, we are selectively inviting folks. We are not sure what the future looks like yet. Please be patient, and as we build this, we will invite more of you. Meanwhile, we appreciate your prayers, love and support.

This week, those of us at The Gathering began our discussion of practices our community wants to focus around. As I mentioned earlier, we are taking our lead from John Howard Yoder‘s book Body Politics and the five practices he mentions there-

• Group discernment and reconciliation
• Open Meetings–a community of equals
• Everyone has a gift and can contribute to the kingdom and the community
• Shared meals as a community (Lord’s Supper, communion, the Mass)
• Baptism as entry to a new world

This week we covered the idea of reconciliation and discernment as a group. We took our lead from the book of Matthew, chapter 18, verses 15-20;

“If another member of the church sins against you, go and point out the fault when the two of you are alone. If the member listens to you, you have regained that one. But if you are not listened to, take one or two others along with you, so that every word may be confirmed by the evidence of two or three witnesses. If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if the offender refuses to listen even to the church, let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, truly I tell you, if two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

Several things we discussed were:

That the goal in this process is never punishment, but reconciliation.  First and foremost, we want to settle disputes and correct wrong behavior, not wave a club of authority at sinners (which would be all of us…)

That brings us to our next point, which is that this is not something the ‘leaders’ do to the ‘congregation’, but is a responsibility of all of us Jesus followers.  We are to hold each other accountable.

That even in the worst case scenario (let such a one be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector), these are people who are objects of mission and the goal is always reconciliation and hope for repair to the relationship.

We discussed that the Bible is not a rule book, but a story or narrative and thus, we have to discern what is right or wrong (binding and loosing) with the help of each other and the Holy Spirit. Rather than give us rules, we have been a given a process, and this is it.

That this process is useful for reconciliation (such as if a member has an addiction, or is engaged in behavior harmful to himself or his relationship with us or Jesus), for individual discernment (what should I do in this situation) and for resolving disputes or discussion over ethics (Can I follow Jesus and be pro-choice? Even though we are not married, can she and I live together?)

Discussion was lively and spirited (We went over our time considerably) and everyone contributed to the discussion.  We also talked about how being in a community of Jesus Followers was a bit like a marriage, in that you give up something of yourself and your will in order for it to work.

Overall, our little experiment is going great! Already, our members are working to support each other, to correct each other and be there for each other.

Keep praying for us.

Photo Credit: Walwyn

Back during the summer, several of us started talking about the next step in our ministry to the poor and homeless, and one thing that kept coming up was what to do with the increasing need we felt for some sort of discipleship in the communities we serve. Finally, several of us decided we needed to throw a gathering of sorts, where we could meet, hold each other accountable and work out what following Jesus looks like in our world. Here is the original concept, cut and pasted from the August newsletter.

One recurring problem we have in our mission to work with and minister to the poor and homeless population of Raleigh is that of how to disciple those who have decided to follow Jesus. I know many of you represent various churches that would be more than happy to have these people attend your Sunday worship services and, in some cases, that has happened. However, we have to face the fact that many of them have had bad experiences with the church in the past, many are not comfortable surrounded by people who are obviously from a different class than they are and some are “pre-christian” – you cannot take it for granted that they have heard of the Sermon on the Mount or The Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Because of this, we have decided to put together a weekly gathering of sorts, where we can build some structure, begin to build relationships across class boundaries and build some accountability with each other as followers of Jesus. We envision a time of bible study and discussion, followed by community time where we discuss our prayer requests, our struggles and triumphs. Monthly we plan to eat together, each bringing items as we are able. While many of those who gather with us will be homeless or poor, we envision the participants being from a variety of class backgrounds and ethnicities. In fact, we are committed to it, celebrating the diversity found in the Kingdom of God. You may be homeless, an accountant, a pastor or a banker, but we are all equal in the Kingdom of God.

Last Sunday, we had our first Gathering, the result of a long time of planning, praying and talking about what it could look like, who would come and so on. Well, it happened, and we think it was a smashing success!

Our Motley Crew (minus Greg, who is taking the picture)

The Make-Up

In the last few years, I have come to understand that in the kingdom of God, everyone has a seat at the table. We all decided that if this was something we were going to invest our time in, we wanted it to be diverse, to cut a swath through a cross-section of people; young, old, rich poor–we are all welcome at the table.

There were 10 of us, meeting in a way too big room (it can seat up to 120, we are told). Of those in attendance, some of us are penniless, some of us are very comfortable middle class and the rest of us are somewhere in between. Occupations represented included an engineer, a school teacher, a nurse, a grass cutter, a some-time auto mechanic, the unemployed and two folks on government disability. We ranged in age from mid-fifties to mid twenties. We were evenly divided between men and women.

The Program

This is very fluid (by design), but we decided some structure, even if we change it later, is better than no structure. Right now, it will look like this:

• A time of greeting and talking amongst ourselves
• An opening prayer
• A reading from scripture, probably dealing with a specific Jesus teaching
• A short intro to the text, giving context and setting up the big questions
• As a community, we will discuss the specific teaching we saw in scripture, discussing how this is relevant in our lives and what doing this in the 21st century looks like. We will discuss it as equals, with all of us having an equal voice.
• A time of sharing, where we enter prayer requests, concerns, things we are rejoicing over or worrying over
• A time of prayer

Like I said, this is the program we are running with right now. Yes, there is no music, but that is subject to change, largely depending upon if God sends us someone with talent and skills (or at least a healthy interest) in that direction.

The Subject Matter

As we are still in the formation stage right now, it seemed right to discuss what we want to be centered on, what our values and core practices are. We wanted to focus on practices as a community rather than doctrine, because a focus on doctrine will divide us, while we can all participate in the practices.

Taking a hint (OK, it was a strong hint) from the most excellent book Body Politics by John Howard Yoder, we have decided to focus upon five practices found in the early church:

• Group discernment and discipline
• Open Meetings–a community of equals
• Everyone has a gift and can contribute to the kingdom and the community
• Shared meals as a community (Lord’s Supper, communion, the Mass)
• Baptism as entry to a new world

These seem to us a good set of things to be focused around. I explained a bit about each one and when needed, used some examples. Over the next five weeks, we will spend time on each one, trying to figure out what that could look like in our community, and why this practice could be beneficial in our journey of following Jesus.

Well, that was pretty much it. What is harder to describe was the vibe, the intensity in the room, the desire for this to work, the hugs and joy that went around the room, the passion among the participants… I just have not the words or the ability to describe it. In short, we all feel good about this. The biggest discussion was on the subject of sharing this with our friends. When you enjoy something, inviting others is a natural reaction. We decided, however, for the first several weeks to work on building our connection with each other and to focus on putting the practices in place before we open it up to the world at large. However, we also agree that opening it up is critical to do, lest we become a group of people who talk to ourselves and congratulate ourselves on being us. Lord knows, the world does not need more Jesus followers doing that.

I will keep all of you updated on this as it progresses. In the meantime, pray for us, would you? After we decide to open it up, we would love to have you come work out what following Jesus means with us.

By the way: It costs us $65 a week to hold these gatherings. If you are able to help us with the rent, it is VERY appreciated.  Just drop us a check in the mail (for whatever you can afford) to the address on this page.