DWELL Missional Church of Burlington, Vermont - A Vermont Church Seeking to be missional in all areas of life.

Posted by: Zach Hoag | November 20, 2009 | Leave a Comment(0)

For as long as Dwell has been in existence, we have consistently gathered together in homes for friendship and spiritual conversation. We've just felt, instinctively maybe, that this is how community works - not just in a building once a week, but day to day, house to house, coffee shop to coffee shop.

As our Sunday gathering has grown, God has given us a vision for dwell/ings - a collection of smaller weekly gatherings that act as both a community enhancement for folks who join us on Sundays and a missional opportunity for our friends and neighbors outside of the church. For a while, we had a Tuesday dwell/ing going on at Border's bookstore downtown, and that was fun; and there was another one on Wednesday happening at our old Sunday gathering spot, Kids Alive.

But by God's grace, things are expanding.

Starting this month, the dwell/ings number three, two of which are in Burlington, and one of which is actually up NORTH - in Milton. And there's a reason for that. The reason is because this summer a guy named Trevor decided that he would follow Jesus, that he would leave behind the old self and embrace the new self in Christ because, really, that's who he was always meant to be. He got baptized. He and his wife Sunny came into covenant. And they live, with little Gavin and Chloe, in Milton.

Because the kingdom of God is present and real and growing, Trevor was talking all about Jesus and Dwell with his friend Jac, who told her friend Harold at work who happened to be a follower of Jesus, too. Harold and his awesome wife Nicole came to Dwell and soon came into covenant. Harold and Nicole live in Milton, too.

Now, Dwell/ing North is my dwell/ing, so I'm a little partial. It's amazing. It's incredible. Each week we eat food (a lot), laugh (a lot), and chat about what we've been reading in Don Miller's latest; we pray for each other and encourage one another and talk about how to build a better story and redeem our city and redeem the world.

But the point is that whether you live in BTV or up North, you are welcome to join us in doing life together, Tuesday and Wednesday nights, the way Jesus and the early church did. It's a bro-down and a sis-down that is nothing less than beautiful because it's all a part of this wonderful thing called the kingdom of God.

[Follow Zach and Trevor on Twitter]

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Posted by: Rachel Stewart | November 7, 2009 | Leave a Comment(0)

My husband and I moved to Burlington about three and a half years ago. Before that I had been working as a graphic designers for two and a half years. I loved all four years of college and design was so exciting for me, but after working in the real world, the passion was wearing thin. Moving here forced me to have to search for another job, which was so hard since I lacked a desire to do design any more. God answered my prayers by opening up a job where my husband works and in a field I knew nothing about. I was interviewed, hired and started work in less then 24 hours, God moved fast!

It was a job all about color, and color was a main part of what I loved about design and being creative. Color says so much, it communicates on a whole other level, just like God. Colors have cultural meanings, historical meanings, can be "on trend" or passé, and communicates with no words. And in the last three years, I have learned more about the language of color. Such as red means passion or danger, blue means calm and serene, yellow is warm and happy, white is pure and clean, black is impure or moody. The human eye can take in and recognize over a million colors. There are different levels of complexity of eyes in various organisms, the simplest "eyes", such as those in unicellular organisms, do nothing but detect whether the surroundings are light or dark. Lightness and Darkness, good and evil, pure and impure are main themes that run through out the entire Bible.

Paul relates the gospel to light in 2 Corinthians 4: 1-6: he says

Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not loose heart. But we have renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, buy by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God. But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the gods of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of God should shine on them. For we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. For it is God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Light is detected by our eyes and it allows us to see beautiful colors. Our eyes are either symbolically full of light or full of darkness. Opened or closed.

So as we come into worship, we should have a singular heart and opened eyes for Christ Jesus alone, and know that His light shines into this world, opening blind eyes to see his truth and reveal the saving gospel of peace, giving hope here and now.

I love this lyric by Switchfoot: "The shadow proves the sunshine."

 

 

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