To be livable the local church must survive outside of institutional settings.  It must be a visible expression of God’s love in the grittiness of daily life Monday through Sunday.  Is it possible that the world might encounter the Body of Christ without going to a meeting?  Is it possible for a local body to demonstrate that living together in relationship is possible? We believe the answer is yes. 

From our perspective righteousness is not to be understood as following a list of rules or doctrinal codes.  Righteousness is loving responsibly and stewarding wisely in partnership with one another.  A right relationship with God, a right relationship with each other, and a right relationship with creation is the fruit of salvation. We believe that the power of our relatedness to Jesus Christ will help us find the strength to grow in grace, forgiveness, and wisdom even when things are hard.

The words “Livable Church” help to stimulate a New Testament memory of a people who lived a common life in the community. Christ had broken down the barriers of sin and death, the addictions of pride and fear, and made a way for relationships of love and unity. Paul wrote to the Ephesians: “The Messiah has made things up between us so that we’re now together on this… He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance… Christ brought us together through his death on the Cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that we the end of hostility.” The demonstration that Christ’s story was “good news” was the unity of the believers. In his letter to the Corinthians Paul said: “Our firm decision is to work from this focused center: One man died for everyone. That puts everyone in the same boat. He included everyone in his death so that everyone could also be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own… The old life is gone, a new life burgeons! Look at it! All this comes from God who settled the relationship between us and him, and then called us to settle our relationships with each other… We’re Christ’s representatives. God uses us to persuade men and women to drop their differences and enter into God’s work of making things right between them.” This “ministry of reconciliation” is the core of the gospel – it is what Jesus came to do.    

Including people in on the experience of God’s love and power for relatedness in community was the good news in demonstration. Christ had made a way for people to live together without fear and self-protection. Nothing could separate them from the love of Christ. When the Corinthian church began to forget what their salvation looked like Paul would say: “You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts – limbs, organs, cells – but no matter how many parts you can name, you’re still one body. It’s exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said goodbye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. …The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don’t, the parts we see and the parts we don’t. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into exuberance. You are Christ’s body – that’s who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your “part” mean anything.

Paul reminded them that the greatest witness of the reality of the gospel is God’s people living life together in love and crucifying their pride and fear for the sake of the context they live. As the story is told in Acts:    
“They committed themselves to the teaching of the apostles, the life together, the common meal, and the prayers. Everyone around was in awe – all those wonders and signs done through the apostles! And all the believers lived in a wonderful harmony, holding everything in common. They sold whatever they owned and pooled their resources so that each person’s need was met. They followed a daily discipline of worship in the Temple followed by meals at home, every meal a celebration, exuberant and joyful, as they praised God. People in general like what they saw. Every day their number grew as God added to those who were saved.”

The purpose of intentional gatherings was to celebrate and remember their power to relate together in the way of love because of what Christ had done. Imagine the revolutionary nature of a communion meal. All the believers in a particular community joined together as one – irregardless of age, gender, ethnicity, position, class or denomination. This meeting was to be representative of their unity in life, working together as a visible Body for the love of the kingdom. Imagine the astonishment. Gentiles are included? Women are included? You trust people outside your own relatives? You share a common life together as one family? This had never happened before.

Imagine the revolutionary of such a meal today. All the believers in a particular local community committing to join together as one body – irregardless of age, gender, ethnicity, position, class or denomination. Is it so laughable to imagine all the believers together working out their salvation by entering into the power of Christ? Is it so idealistic to believe that we can choose to live this way today? People would be astonished. “What? Christian leaders are more interested in relating and collaborating together in daily life than in getting people into a building on Sunday?” “What? Followers of Christ give up their personal agendas in order to live life together? They don’t think individualism and the American dream are the key to happiness?”

The questions we are trying to ask with regards to our gatherings and service is whether or not they are helping to accomplish this same calling. This is the purpose of gatherings and the purpose of service: to let people know they are included in the blessings of life in relationship because of what Christ has done. We have chosen a new lens through which to evaluate our success. These three vital questions serve as a framework for considering whether our ministry plans are fulfilling kingdom purposes:  

1.  Is this ministry empowering believers to a shared life in the real day-to-day world?
2.  Is this ministry empowering believers to partner with people who are affiliated with other denominations as one body in the real day-to-day world?
3.  Is this ministry lightening the load of fellow-disciples by enabling and encouraging a less fragmented way of living where church ministry and everyday life can become one and the same?

The Livable Church believes its particular and primary responsibilities are embedded in the place they are most deeply related.  By this we mean a geographical community that is large enough to live life together with a visible body (clearly bigger than a building) and small enough to be relationally connected in daily life (clearly smaller than a region).