At Granite Community Church, alongside Boort Baptist Church, we have been encouraging our Church Families to explore Michael Frost’s BELLS missional rhythm of life.
BELLS is an acronym which teaches us 5 missional habits to live out our faith in the neighbourhood – Bless, Eat, Listen, Learn, & Sent. Throughout the week, we seek to live in proximity to one another and be a people of generosity, people who practise hospitality, people who listen to the Spirit and to our neighbours, people who learn to live incarnationally like Christ, and who continually see ourselves as sent, missional people.
In June, I was part of a small group of Baptist Pastors that were privileged enough to travel to the USA West Coast on a BUV Study Tour*. We met over 30 people over the course of a couple of weeks. What was striking to me was the number of times people spoke about “joining God in the neighbourhood”. There were really not many big, fabulous programs, and no “cookie cutter” approach. Rather, what we encountered time and time again were groups of people who loved Jesus, opening their eyes to see what God was already doing where they lived and simply join in with that. What resulted were very unique expressions of what it means to follow Jesus, make disciples, and alert people to the reign and rule of God in Christ.
Neighbourhoods are unique places. No two neighbourhoods are exactly the same. Therefore, the way God works in those neighbourhoods is also unique, and the way we do ministry and mission needs to match the unique nature of our neighbourhoods and God’s work within them.
BUV 2016 US Study Tour – finding God in our neighbourhoods
As I came home I was inspired. Not to grab something that I had seen in the United States and implement it in our communities in North West Victoria, but to come home and find God here. We need to see the unique ways He is moving in our communities and neighbourhoods around The Church in the Paddock, and discover how to join Him on his mission here.
What has been incredible as we have started to live out BELLS over the past 9 months in our Church Family is how we have had our eyes opened to what God is up to. When we began to be on the look out for ways to be a blessing, our eyes were opened to the multitude of opportunities God has placed before us to be generous. When we began to be on the look out for ways to be hospitable, our eyes were opened and we began to see ordinary meal times, or cups of coffee with others, as sacred, as times of worship, and as opportunities to proclaim and demonstrate what our God is like.
When we intentionally seek to live an incarnational life which is shaped and modelled on the life of Jesus, when we seek to listen intently to his Spirit and go where ever we sense he is sending us, we discover an adventure is to be had right here in our own neighbourhoods. When we begin to listen to the stories in our neighbourhoods with new ears, and see the places where we have lived for years with new eyes, we discover that God is present and working. We see life and beauty, and opportunity to join with God on His mission of restoring and redeeming the world!
So open your eyes. Listen with new ears. What’s God doing in your neighbourhood? And how are you going to be obedient to His Spirit in going where he sends you today?
Rev Jono Ingram
Stumbling Jesus- follower, Husband, Father, Community Gardener, Donald Primary School Wellbeing co-ordinator, Donald Bureau of Meterology Weather reporter, and Pastor at The Church in the Paddock (Granite Community Church) in NW Victoria.
*This tour took us from Los Angeles, to San Francisco, Sacramento, Portland, Seattle-Tacoma, and Vancouver, speaking to Churches, Church planters, missional thinkers and pioneers in innovative mission about ministry and mission in a changing society.
Source: BUV News