Want More than Attendance Based Religion? Be Additive, Not Subtractive When Moving Towards Ecosystem

When making this change towards ecosystem, whether it’s a “Bible study” or “congregation” or “parish”—a good philosophy is… Be additive not subtractive! Get involved in each others’ lives way off-schedule in addition to whatever your organized thingy might be. Go places, do things, engage in life and make Jesus central in every little thing with each other. Notice life or lack of life. Talk about it together. No policing but also no spiritually brain dead world-seeking, fun-seeking nonsense. Not little cliques, but everybody, or some unassigned ever-changing subsets of everybody. Talk about your spiritual life and what you are learning. Let Jesus cease to be a topic on a schedule, but rather “live and move and have your being” in Him. Be vulnerable not teachy or weird. Let the previous so-called clergy become just a brother or sister in the middle of a family. Maybe with extra gifts, maybe not, but that’s not even relevant. As Jesus said, nobody is special, “you are all just brothers,” Matthew 23. Just let Jesus be center of all of the “extra” times you are also together, and much of the other system stuff will melt into an ecosystem. And “when revelation comes to the second one, let the first sit down!” will become a way of life every day. And, in fact, “Bible studies” and “services” will no longer exist in your mind. You’ll never think of anything again as “going to church” or “something to attend.” You will have outgrown that concept. Live life. Jesus centered. None of us have it altogether, but all together we have it all. You will discover some amazing things about each other and about Jesus. People will come to crossroads in their lives that they didn’t know they needed to come to. Not everything will turn out great, but amazing things will happen for those who really do want Jesus with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. We all will be set free to discover gifts and horizons we were previously unaware of in ourselves and others. As Jesus said, “100 mothers, brothers, sisters, lands, possessions, and Zoe life.” Ecosystem Life, Together. For “whosoever will.” “This is My church that the gates of hell can no longer prevail against.” Who has Oil? You’ll find out. You won’t be able to turn a system into an ecosystem, because you will lose the majority of your friends when you start living for Jesus this way. Many will hate it because they hate the light. Still, you are doing what you need to do and finding out who is real or wants to be. That is powerful! Take your time. And again, God could do a Jonah-Ninevah thing and from the King down everyone will grab ahold of Jesus’ cloak. The motto: 80 miles deep and 5 miles wide is… 2.5 million times better than… 1 inch deep, 40 miles wide.