Living Stones
Growing People, Multiplying Leaders

E54 Daring Love

Our Tribe - Week 4

4 years ago

The Acts 2 Church was part of a powerfully unified community connected by shared values and purpose. The culture was so countercultural that people were drawn into their community. You see, if the culture isn’t right, nothing else really matters, and that’s because culture always wins! If you have a great culture, your church will thrive. A great culture enables you to do great things! In our current series: Our Tribe - we will clarify what Living Stones is all about! We will talk about the 7 things we value here, and how these values shape what we do! Our culture must be incarnated! Today we talk about our third value: Daring love! Christ’s love is daring – it’s bold and courageous; it’s fearless and adventurous. And that’s the kind of love which He invites us to enjoy and to share with others. Daring Love is supernatural in that it is beyond our normal reach and ability. We need Christ to transform our hearts and we need the Holy Spirit to work this kind of love through us. Daring Love is critical in that it inspires others to love boldly and courageously. When Love has no evidence, it believes the best. When the evidence is adverse, it hopes for the best. And when hopes are repeatedly disappointed, it still courageously waits. (Robertson and Plummer - 1Corinthians  13-Critical and Exegetical Commentary)

Launching in 1981 as just 30 people in a living room in Northwest Indiana, Living Stones has grown into a vibrant multi-generational church family. Stones are a product of God the Creator — formed in nature and no two are alike. As we come to faith in Jesus Christ, scripture tells us that we are like living stones in the hand of God and He is using us to build up a spiritual house. Our foundation was built on the work of nurturing and restoring healthy, biblical marriages. In continuing that mission, everything we do here at Living Stones is centered around loving, healing, and equipping individuals and families to grow into a greater likeness of Christ Jesus! By the Holy Spirit, we exist today to Renew Hearts, Restore Homes, Reform Culture and Reach the Nations with the gospel of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 2:4-5 ”As you come to him who is the Living Stone — he was rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious — you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house.” We are a family — misfits, hypocrites, creatives, addicts, reformers, over-churched, unchurched, wanderers — each of us a stone, uniquely crafted by the hand of God, made alive through Jesus, and now living by the power of the Holy Spirit. Together, we are Living Stones.