GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT DOING LIFE TOGETHER

Church of the Open Door in Maple Grove, Minnesota is serious about leaders setting an example of the kind of life they want the people in their church to experience. In the Winter 2009 edition of Leadership Journal, Executive Pastor, Keith Meyer shares the following "Rules for Life" for Leaders at Church of the Open Door.

Two words: I LIKE.

A few more words: I LIKE, A LOT!!!

Here's a copy of the "covenant" they ask their leaders to make for doing life together. This is really gooooooood stuff.


"Rule of Life" for Leaders at Church of the Open Door

Living in Jesus. We will have regular habits of "being with Jesus" for transformation into Trinitarian life.
-Slowing our lives down together to eliminate hurry.
-Paying attention to God together, all of the time.
-Confessing our sins to one another in safe groups.
-Memorizing and meditating together on longer, transformative passages of scripture.
-Interceding for each other, our community, and our world in prayer together.
-Mentoring and being mentored across generational, ethnic, class, and gender lines.

Living in Transformation. We will intentionally and freely speak into each other's lives for the good of each other in all areas of our lives as individuals, groups, and in our organization.

Living in Community. We will be with each other and do life together, and we will not submit to the drag of institutional isolation and the slow death of going too fast or being too busy to love each other.

Living in Mission. We will be in the world but not of it, and we will seek to serve and be served by the least and all others around us. We will consider others better than ourselves.

Living in Reconciliation. We will expect to experience conflict and uncover disorder in our relationships, but we will refuse to live in unresolved conflict and will practice "the peace of Christ" among us.

Living in Good Speech. We will always believe and speak the best of each other and not entertain rumors, gossip, demeaning talk, or slander but will bring as needed any bad report to the light of each other's awareness for answer and response.

Living in Submission to One Another. We will submit to one another in love, believing that our community will most often have the wisdom we need, but we will not allow submission to each other replace our call to submit first to God.

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Now, that's a group of people who take life together seriously!