(Read the full story originally published in the July/August 2012 issue of Together magazine)

Sisters and brothers, I am humbled and overjoyed to join you in ministry. I thank you dearly for your warm welcome and enthusiasm for the newly-budding community ministry down on Southwest Fondren. I’m blessed to call Westbury my home and you my family.

Perhaps this ministry looks like a house church—that is, a group of Westbury folks moving into the neighborhood, living together and creating a holy and safe gathering place for worship and discipleship. Perhaps this ministry looks like a community house—a holy space offering refuge for folks in need. Perhaps this ministry looks like something we haven’t yet imagined.

This is what I am sure of: God calls us...

to be faithful disciples of Jesus who welcome the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
to this ministry––as an entire body––with our neighborhood at the Fondren corridor.
to deeper relationship with God and each other, as we live and eat and work and commune
together in the spaces we call home.
to listen intently and faithfully to the Holy Spirit and the voices within the community.
to slow down and notice the details—to be attentive to how God is at work already in the world and how we are being welcomed as God’s partners in it.