- Chris L. -

This past Friday, the Klesis freshmen and seniors joined up at Durant Loft again, as the calendar flipped over to November! Crazy how fast the fall 2018 semester has just flown by, but grateful we still have Friday nights to gather and read God’s Word and fellowship.

First, we needed to crown us a champion among our group with some good, old-fashioned rock, paper scissors. After many empires being conquered and many dangerous conquests, we all were ruled under one big empire, so at the end of the day, we’re all winners :)

Observe Nick L and Eddie H go at it in the image above. Not exactly two great kings fighting for glory for their kingdoms. But it’s the best we got.

After uniting under one kingdom of rocks, papers, and scissors, we took the game to heart with our discussion question to start our evening: what would your ideal spiritual community look like? We discussed this prompt with our smaller groups by table before opening up the floor to let people share their thoughts. Ideas that came out included:

people open and honest with one another
a group that isn’t cliquey, but reaching outsiders and welcoming them in
leaders who are wise and provide guidance to younger ones

and many other aspects that we shared with one another. Isaiah then directed us to the place in the Bible where the picture of the ideal spiritual community is most aptly depicted, in the book of Acts, Chapter 2. The verses 42-47 read the following:

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

A beautiful picture of a vibrant spiritual community, this passage is describing the earliest Christian community, the OG church in Jerusalem. It almost feels like every part of what these Christians is equal parts awesome, inspiring, encouraging and challenging. Could a group of believers in 2018, on a huge college campus like Berkeley, really live like this? Committing themselves to the teaching of the Bible, to the point of devotion? Coming together and sharing everything, all possessions Opening up their homes to meet for food and fellowship regularly, even daily?

This is the challenge, for believers to come together in unity such as this, and if a group in today’s day and age could begin to live like this, what kind of impact could that church make on the world? This is ultimately what Klesis is about, trying our best to live out the high calling of the Acts 2 church, doing life together, reading God’s Word and of course, eating good food.

To close this time together, Philip and some of the freshmen led us in a few songs, as we affirmed our commitment to seeing this vision carried out in Klesis and on our campus, together as a group of students who can make an impact in this world.

Right after, the seniors headed off to join the rest of the seniors from our other fellowship groups, while all the frosh gathered at DL to practice for our Thanksgiving Celebration dance! Led by Eric L and Abraham A, we danced to our hearts’ content, even those of us who consider our limbs pieces of flesh awkwardly attached to our bodies and refuse to respond to music in proper motions. Have to say, by the end of our practice, we looked alright when we all did the dance together as one big group just hanging out and having fun.

Of course, we couldn’t let the night end without putting some folks on the spot, and tonight it was the new grad brothers who got the opportunity to show off their amazing skills…

Eric L is either laughing in delight at the dancing or screaming due to his unbearable back pain. Not sure which.

Spiritual Community // All-Frosh Practice