An Invitation to Belong - 7 Weeks of Studying The Beatitudes
I have a confession to make.
I am tired of navigating assessments to figure out where I belong. When we moved into our neighborhood in 2021 and started meeting our neighbors, we entered the unofficial neighborhood assessment. The goal? To sift us into the neighborhood tribe. Are we tennis, pool, party, or back porch folk; leave us alone folk, or the drop by any time folk?
(I am sure you know it is not just neighborhoods that do this unofficial assessment.)
Maybe you're tired, too: tired of having your life assessed and researched only to be invited into some relationships while excluded from others. Tired of entering into the evaluating and researching process to figure out who will be ok with you.
The Beatitudes are Christ’s example of what it looks like to belong as people who are “blessed in my Kingdom.”
The beatitudes are "blessed sayings" that come from the opening verses of the famous Sermon on the Mount delivered by Jesus Christ and recorded in Matthew 5:3-12. Here Jesus stated several blessings, each beginning with the phrase, "Blessed are ..."
There is a moment that feels a bit counter-assessment of the world’s exhausting cycle of evaluation, research, and sorting to belong. It’s in the “beatitudes” that Christ invites us into belonging.
Christ is sitting on a hill in Isreal pulling back the veil on what it looks like to live as one who belongs to Christ, giving us nine characteristics of those who belong to Jesus and a sort of end cap illustration (Salt and Light). He says these are the people who belong with me and are blessed in my Kingdom.
Let’s Pull Back The Veil on Whom “Belongs” in Christ's Kingdom
Living Fellowship Church in Alpharetta is going to commit our time together Sunday mornings from September 4th to October 16th, to look at how the Beatitudes teach us what it looks like to belong to Christ, how we embrace them, and what benefit they bring to our neighbors and us.
During these seven weeks of looking at how Christ pulls back the veil on whom belongs in his kingdom.
It’s not the rich but the poor.
It’s not powerful but meek.
It’s not warriors but peacemakers.
And along the way, he invites us into a life of belonging with Christ with our eyes fixed on him, not our neighbors.
We Invite You to Join Us at Living Fellowship Church at Preston Ridge Sunday’s at 10am
What a great gift to our neighbor we will be if, by God’s grace, we become a physical example of the Beatitudes walking our streets. Our Neighbors will not feel assessed by us but welcomed just as we have been. Maybe we’ll get to watch the veil pulled back for our neighbors.
I confess I’m tired of living in this exhausting cycle. I’m sure you are too.
The good news is there is hope and belonging in Christ. Come spend time with us gathering on Sunday mornings.
About the Artist and Art
The artwork above is by local artist Rachel Shogren.
It is a commissioned piece that will be displayed at LFC on Sunday mornings to help our hearts to see how the beatitudes pull back the veil on what it looks like to follow Christ. It was also inspired in part by the poem by Malcum Guite below.
Rachel and her husband Bobby along with their three children are a part of the Living Fellowship Church community. You can find more about her artwork and purchase a print on her Facebook Site.
Beatitudes. By Malcolm Guite.
I bless you, who have spelt your blessings out,
And set this lovely lantern on a hill
Lightening darkness and dispelling doubt
By lifting for a little while the veil.
For longing is the veil of satisfaction,
And grief the veil of future happiness.
I glimpse beneath the veil of persecution
The coming kingdom's overflowing bliss.
Oh, make me pure of heart and help me see,
Amongst the shadows and amidst the mourning,
The promised Comforter, alive and free,
The kingdom coming and the Son returning,
That even in this pre-dawn dark I might
At once reveal and revel in your light.
