Laurie

I read your post and it brought me to tears.. Not exactly a solution, but I want you to know that the heart of the Lord is broken for you and for so many because we have strayed so far from the most basic definition of Christian living.. "See how they love one another!"

I hear your heart to be in real community.. a people on a journey, and committed to one another and to being the church together.. a community of life, light and love and in that light a witness to the darkness around them.

The modern church is really all but incapable of such a thing. And so there are many of us.. you would probably be surprised just how many... beginning to build something new.

It is about making a new start.. and not merely new paint for the old thing. No one puts new wine into old skins...

So my encouragement to you.. and my prayer for you.. is to find just a few others who are trying to be the church for one another.. and then in that growing strength to begin to reach out with that love. One hand reaching in.. and one hand reaching out.

It's hard to make that new beginning. Why? Because we have all died trying to renew the old thing.. and now we have less faith and less strength for a new venture.

And even rebuilding means some simple structures.. and we have no faith in structures.

So it takes a kind of leap of faith into newness. ANd maybe that leap is truly a faith leap... a divine spark and a gift from above. And, as you point out.. you can't make that leap alone. The leap is made relationally not only individually. So the divine gift is first a gift of community.

So Lord of the church, connect Laurie with the few who are going to new places.