I pray that out of his glorious riches [The Father] may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
— Ephesians 3.16–19 NIV
This year, Roots completed a significant transition. We’ve gone from an unincorporated fellowship affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church to a constitutionally chartered church in the Moravian tradition. You could say that we’ve settled down roots as a community. This new institutional identity provides us with the opportunity to reenvision the stewardship of our community. What are the rhythms and practices that connect us deeply and by which we provide for one another?
Throughout “Gentle Regathering” and particularly during our denominational discernment process, the pastoral team continued to sense God calling to our minds Paul’s prayer in Ephesians chapter 3. Just as Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus to be “rooted and established in love,” so have we prayed for Roots.
Paul was praying that all the disciples in Ephesus would became stewards of their community. Likewise, in this series we’re inviting every misfit who calls Roots home to become stewards of the Roots community. We’ll be exploring questions like: What does intentional hospitality look like? What does it mean to be committed financially? And what does it mean to serve as one of the “branches” of this living organism we call Roots Moravian Church?