Commons Church

As a life group leader for a number of years at Commons a situation came up in the group that I thought I would talk to the life group leadership at the church to get some Direction with. After talking with her it appeared she was trying to be helpful in supporting the concerns I had however after talking to her that one time she let the other members of the group know that she was going to shut the group down rather than give the group a chance to work through the concern, without informing me. All of this happened before covid-19 was an issue. When I found out about her decision and tried to talk to her about this I was informed that she was the staff life group leader who had full control over the group's and could make decisions about any life group as she wished without knowing the situation, having been involved with the group in any meaningful way or having a discussion with a life group leader. This matter of dealing with life groups was never expressed to me when I took on the role and she talked to me as though I should have known that's the way things were. My only guess is that she decided this because life groups had an extremely high failure rate in the church previous to my becoming a life group leader and it appeared that her Intervention which I believe she mentioned, was to try to save the membership of the church caused by life group failures, not help the group or group leader. I would not have taken on life group leadership if this have been communicated and clear manner and this value seem to come at the expense of supporting life groups to work through struggles and support their leaders. It is not uncommon for people to make mistakes and learn from them but in this situation though some of the information was reluctantly agreed to after lengthy discussion mostly they did not seem to want to learn from the feedback when the situation was discussed with them. My hope is that at some point they'll be able to look at these things in a better light and spare some of the hurt that I can only imagine has been caused, not only in our group but also numerous other situations.

Everyone is welcome and such a great community and insights.

Someone from another church once asked me what Commons Church was doing differently that was drawing people to it. This is a church community which embraces the diversity of Christian traditions while intellectually exploring the teachings of Jesus through the multifaceted lens we call life. It's a wonderful community but it's not a fit for everyone. A few friends find discomfort with the embrace of the orthodox Christian traditions, while others mention the progressive approach of Commons is challenging to digest. I like that it keeps me on my toes, expands my perspectives, and invites me deeper in my faith.

Great christmas eve. Service. With real candles.

Jeremy is brilliant in his examination of the scriptures! Commons provides an intelligent, theologically sound approach to spirituality that focuses on knowing and living from the heart of Christ. Couldn’t recommend this community enough!