Life in Connection 2.0 | Sunday, April 11, 2021

For he himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation... so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross... Now therefore you are no longer strangers... but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God... in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:14–22)

I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that you would walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit... one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. (Ephesians 4:1–6)

After a year that knocked us all off course, what does it look like to return to the basics and truly live life in connection with God, one another, and the world?

Knocked Out of Our Routines

After more than a year of closures and shutdowns, it's safe to say each of us has learned a number of things about our government, our culture, the media, our local communities, and probably about our families and ourselves as well. Life can sometimes go about on cruise control or autopilot. We get into routines and patterns that repeat from one week to the next. Our lives are rather algorithmic—we live according to a basic conditional, if-this-then-that routine. If Monday morning, then this; if Tuesday afternoon, then that.

It is not until we hit some bump in the road—a health issue, a job loss, a car accident, or COVID—that we find ourselves bounced out of our routine lanes. Suddenly, especially from a psychological standpoint, we are disregulated. When you find yourself emotionally, spiritually, psychologically, or behaviorally out of sync, you will inevitably be triggered. We have a reflexive reaction, and we then try to reorient back to something more normal. This is actually called the orienting reflex.

Individual Triggers and a Shared One

Over the last year, nearly everyone you know has been shocked out of their normal routines and has been trying to orient back to something more steady. This happens to individuals on a micro level every single day, but it is rare that entire populations are subjected to the same triggering event at once.

Individuals experience dysregulating events all the time. Several years ago, one of my very good friends—some of you knew him—had a bad stomachache over a weekend, and by Monday afternoon his world was utterly turned upside down when he received the terminal diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Twenty-two years ago this month, my youth pastor, Pastor Tony, who still faithfully attends Cross Connection Church, was seriously injured in a mountain bike accident. Everything changed for him and his family instantly on a Tuesday afternoon in April of 1999.

Occasionally large populations are affected together by dysregulating events—terrorist attacks, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, floods. The upside of those large-scale events is that they generally are very short-term, and life orients back to a moderate level of normalcy relatively quickly. But what we throughout the world have experienced over the last year has been a sustained event. This sustained bump in the road has been very challenging, and through it all, we've been trying to navigate back to some sense of normalcy.

The Weight of a Difficult Year

I don't know about you, but I'm tired of hearing the words "the new normal"—and even more tired of hearing myself say them. But in reality, that's what we've all been trying to reorient back to. Unfortunately, alongside the COVID-related shutdowns and closures, there have been a lot of other major, culture-altering events: the death of George Floyd, the protests, the chaos that followed, and the insanity of a chaotic political season.

Have you been able to have a conversation in the last year that hasn't been mostly dominated by these topics? The fact that they come up in nearly every conversation indicates they weigh heavy on our minds—and not only that, they wear us out. Stress affects our sleep, our emotions, our kids. Mental health issues have skyrocketed. I was recently interviewing a licensed clinical social worker, and she told me her practice has been bombarded this last year. In some respects, I think we kind of miss the boring routine.

An Opportunity to Re-evaluate

But here's something I've noticed in myself and in others, whether inside or outside the church: a lot of people have been brought to a place of realizing that their old normal, their old routines, may not have actually been the best. They were comfortable, but maybe not entirely healthy. They were consistent, but maybe not totally sustainable.

World-altering events like these really do provide an opportunity to re-evaluate what we are doing and how we are doing it. I've been doing a lot of re-evaluating for myself, and I've realized that I like change about as much as the next guy—which is to say, not very much. I had a remarkably routine life until thirteen months ago, a life I'd grown comfortable with, and all of that has radically changed. I'll be the first to admit I've internally wrestled with it. But the wrestling is pointless, because we actually can't not change. We can't just go back to life as it used to be, because that life no longer exists.

It's like dating someone for a long time, and then they break up with you and say, "I really hope we can maintain our friendship." But you can't. It doesn't work that way. You can't go back to the way things were after these major events happen.

What Does Church Look Like Now?

So I've been wrestling with how all of this affects the church—the larger corporate church, and our smaller local body as well. For the next two or three weeks, I want to share some things I think are important for us as a local church and as members of the big-C church around the world. What does church look like in a post-COVID world?

First, praise God we're approaching a post-COVID world—hopefully a world without masks, much more reopened, where you can go back to movie theaters, concerts, dining inside, and church inside. (Though I hate to break it to you—ten years from now you'll still see people wearing masks during the winter season.)

In a lot of ways, church still looks the same. At a fundamental level, church has remained consistent for 2,000 years even as the culture keeps changing around it. But some things will change. What COVID has done is accelerate global, cultural, and church trends, and it has stripped away a lot of unnecessary structures within society and within the church. COVID causes a return to the basics. I want to talk about those basics—of the church as a whole and of our church—so you can know what you're a part of and plug in more fully.

The Church Has a God-Ordained Purpose

Did you know the church is not just an organization, although it is an organization? It's not just an institution, although it is an institution. The church is an entity—a living body—with a God-ordained purpose.

If you ask 20 different pastors what the purpose of the church is, you'll get 20 different answers, but with a lot of overlap. They'll say things like preaching the gospel, discipleship, worship, fellowship, ministry, missions, or social justice—I know that one makes some people uncomfortable. About 25 years ago, Pastor Rick Warren wrote a book called The Purpose Driven Church, in which he gives a good summation: the church exists to grow warmer through fellowship, deeper through discipleship, stronger through worship, broader through ministry, and larger through evangelism.

All five of those are good and important, and you could make a solid biblical case that each is a purpose for which God called His church into being. From these things, every church establishes its mission and vision. The mission of the church is to fulfill that God-ordained purpose, and a church's vision is how its leadership envisions itself fulfilling that mission.

Cross Connection's Vision: Life in Connection

At Cross Connection Church, we've said for many years that our vision, mission, and purpose are summed up this way: we exist to live life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. We want to experience, express, and extend life in connection. We believe true and abundant life are found ultimately through Jesus.

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

I am the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6)

In John 11, Jesus reveals He is the resurrection and the life. The Gospel of John opens by telling us that in Jesus was life, and that life is the light of men.

For some of you, this is review—you've heard it dozens, if not hundreds, of times. But sometimes it's good to be reminded. Important things need to be restated over and over: look both ways before you cross the street, brush your teeth, chew with your mouth closed, don't hit your sister. So Garrett says it every week in our announcements, I say it frequently in my messages, our name reaffirms it, our website is lifeinconnection.com, and we use the hashtag #lifeinconnection. We drill it into you constantly because we want you to know it.

Knowing It Experientially

More than knowing it intellectually, we want you to know it experientially. We want you to discover what it means to live life in connection—first with God, then with one another within the body of Christ, and then with the world through missions and outreach.

What does it mean to have life through Jesus? What does it look like to live that life in connection with God, to come into contact with the God of the universe and have transcendent encounters with Him in daily life? How do we live this life in fellowship with one another, fulfilling the "one anothers" of Scripture? And what is our responsibility to bring this good news to those in the world who don't yet know it—the people you live next door to, work with, go to school with, whose kids your kids play soccer with?

This matters because you and I were created to live life in connection with God and one another. That's how God originally made us—we'll look at that next week in Genesis. We do not fully live until we have this life through Jesus. This is the abundant life of John 10:10, and it is not only a life here in this world; it extends into eternity and culminates there.

On Campus, Online, and in Homes

As we return to basic rhythms of church and social life, it's my hope that we can more fully experience these things. I hope we can build new routines of connection—gathering corporately at the church, in small groups and homes, as service teams in the community, within businesses, even on mission trips, and of course this new rhythm of connecting online.

Cross Connection Church is now focused on developing life in connection on campus, online, and in homes. When I say that, I think it's really a return to the basics. The church 2,000 years ago, before it had buildings, gathered in public spaces and in homes, and used the technology of its day to share the Scriptures at a distance—letters carried by letter carriers. Paul wrote letters to encourage, strengthen, and teach the churches from afar. Thank God he did, because we have those letters today. The technology of our day is YouTube and podcasts, and I am praying about and working toward this life in connection on campus, online, and in homes. I hope you will help us make it more of a reality, because if you're part of this church, you're part of extending this life in connection.

A Closing Word from Ephesians

As a close, I want to read a portion of Scripture that has been a key passage every time I talk about life in connection—Ephesians 2, beginning at verse 14. Christ is our peace, who has made both one and broken down the middle wall of separation, creating one new man from the two, reconciling us both to God in one body through the cross. This is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus—through the cross. He preached peace to those who were afar off and to those who were near, and through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father.

You are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building is fitted together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

After a long parenthetical break in chapter 3, Paul returns to that thought in chapter 4: walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, through all, and in you all. This is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would continue to unite us together as one body, as we have one hope and have been baptized into one church, and You are our Father, above all and through all in us all. We pray that You would work in and through us, Your church, joining us together in a powerful way, that we would learn more fully and experientially what it is to be in connection with You—through prayer, through study of the Scriptures, through worship, and through serving together.

Teach us what it looks like to fulfill the "one anothers" of Scripture—to love one another, pray for one another, bless and care for one another—and to extend that to the world. Help us go into all the world, especially right here in our own community in North San Diego County, and share the good news of Your grace, the good news that reconciles us who were once enemies. Help us be a light to family members, friends, co-workers, and neighbors who don't know You. Help us learn in this new season what it is to live life in connection with You and with one another, and to extend that to the world—this life through Your Son Jesus Christ—whether on campus, in homes, or online. However You want to use us, Lord, help us to do that. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.