I believe we were intentionally designed – by a community, for community.
The FREEDOM TOUR is a community with many benefits. Good friends. Shared workload. Broad life experience. Collective wisdom. We go farther and accomplish more together than alone.
Those benefits come with responsibilities. I can’t do “whatever I want” because my choices and actions impact my friends. Community isn’t really a community if I enjoy the benefits without accepting the responsibilities. A community falls apart when its members behave in an individualistic, self-centered manner.
Community was designed around service.
This balance between freedom, rights, and responsibilities gets tricky. Speaking for myself, I try (and often fail) to default to responsibility. I do that because I follow Jesus, who voluntarily surrendered all the freedom in the universe.
Two thoughts:
Service is best done with humility.
Sacrifice is a personal choice.
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So…back to the FREEDOM TOUR.
I’m thinking along these lines, paraphrased from Richard Halverson, former Chaplain of the U. S. Senate:
In the beginning the church was a community centered on Jesus. In Greece, it became a philosophy. In Rome, it became an institution. In Europe, it became a culture. Finally it moved to America, where it became an enterprise.
According to the dictionary, “an enterprise is a unit of economic organization or activity.” So from Halverson’s perspective, the church morphed over the centuries from a community based on servant leadership…to a unit of economic activity.
I do not want the FREEDOM TOUR to become an enterprise.
We are a community centered on Jesus. We value servant leadership.
Part of that, of course, is seeking justice, protecting the vulnerable and the marginalized. So we support the kids at the HOME OF HOPE. But we do not want to be a fundraiser.
Is community less efficient? Absolutely. Does it scale? Not very well.
Community is messy. Weird people will show up, because Jesus tends to attract messy, weird people like me.
Lots easier to be streamlined and systematic, but easy was never the point.
Jesus is the point.