I was part of a club when I was a kid. Summer was our season. The back yard, the corner store, and the river were our domain. We had a fort and a secret handshake which involved spit, fists, fingers, and a little “razzle dazzle”. That handshake let us know who was “in” and who was “out” -- although that was never an issue as there were only three of us. It signified a commitment to each other to have fun and to not tell our parents (Well, the runaway fire in Danny’s back yard DID come up with my parents…).

Now as an adult I am part of another club -- only now we call it a community. Dorothy and I made a commitment to a group of people who come from as far away as Hong Kong and Germany, the Philippines and Guatemala. We don’t have a handshake, but we do have a covenant. That covenant binds us to certain attitudes and actions as together we seek to mobilize God’s people and engage the unreached in order to establish reproducing churches.

The covenant, a solemn heart-to-heart commitment, calls us to unity. It asks us to share the burdens of our coworkers and work things out when relationships get strained. We won’t bail out as soon as the water gets rough.

The covenant calls us to perseverance. A spiritual battle rages as we seek to establish reproducing churches among the unreached. We will not relent from that goal, but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit we will adapt to the ever changing global conditions in order to be used by God for His glory.

The covenant also calls us to dependence.  God is adequate, we are not. We choose to lean hard into God and not into our own understanding. We regularly pray for the Holy Spirit to have the loudest voice in the room whenever we gather. We trust God to supply all that we need in order to accomplish what He is calling us to do.

Finally, the covenant calls us to submission. We are trusting God to guide us in harmony with those leaders who are responsible for the direction of the work. We are not independent operators, but bound together in a community to accomplish that which God is calling this, His community, to accomplish.

There are days when I miss the handshake (not the spit part). Perhaps we need to come up with a similar greeting for our community -- a physical reminder of the commitment we have made.

Or maybe just a tattoo. (OK, kidding.)

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