What is Abiding Together?
Abiding
"dwelling, living, or remaining"
Together
"with each other"
Abiding Together means dwelling, living, and remaining in intimate relationship with God, not in isolated, individualistic spirituality, but together as a community of people - people who are also learning to dwell, live, and remain in authentic, intimate relationships with each other.
In other words, relationships with each other and with God are interconnected. Loving relationship with God cannot be fully experienced and enjoyed apart from loving relationships with each other, and vice versa. We are not meant for one without the other. We are made to abide in both together. Sounds pretty basic, right? Well, yes. Basic, but not easy.
Our Twofold Mission
Authentic Relationships
The longer I live, both as a human being and as a pastoral counselor, the more convinced I am that this is what we were made for – to live in and for relationships of authenticity and intimacy with God and each other – and the more convinced I am that the root of our problems is the poverty and breakdown of our relationships with God and each other. I see this again and again in myself, in the people I counsel, in groups I facilitate, in pastors and ministry leaders I work with, and in churches I serve. Both our destruction and our restoration come through the quality of our relationships.
Intimate Communities
Because of this, Abiding Together exists to help not only relationally broken people but also relationally broken churches learn to live authentically and intimately with God and each other. We do this by providing environments of raw honesty and unconditional acceptance through Christ-Centered Counseling and Authentic Community with fellow strugglers. Our goal is to empower these very strugglers to cultivate cultures of authenticity and intimacy in their churches by implementing there what they have learned by experience here. Together in these relationships, Jesus is bringing us hope, joy, healing, change, and, ultimately, love that can transform individuals, couples, families, and whole churches. (Learn more about playing the long game in Church Planting & Renewal.)
In and For
We like to say that we're learning to live both IN and FOR these kinds of relationships. This means we believe that relationships are more than simply one part of our lives. Instead, they are the central aim of our lives. Relationships of authenticity and intimacy with God and each other are what we are made to live FOR! We long to see this relational focus pervade every area of our lives so that we treat relationships not as means to various ends, but as ends in themselves. (Learn more about Why Focus on Relationship if I'm dealing with some other issue?)
It's Not Easy
None of this comes easily or naturally. Our self-protecting, self-sufficient, self-promoting instincts are still intact (the Bible calls them our “flesh”). We’re scared of intimacy, of unfeigned authenticity that lets people know us as we really are. But God has not left us alone to face our flesh and our fears. Jesus says He is with us, abiding in each of us by His Spirit. He helps us come out of hiding and into authentic relationships with each other. And in and through those relationships, He teaches us how to live all of life abiding together in intimacy with the Trinity. For that is where we find hope, joy, freedom, healing, and love – in part in this life, and completely in eternity. (Learn more about the Source, the Goal, and the Point of Life.)
The Vine and the Branches
Jesus came up with this metaphor when He said to His disciples, "Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:4-5)
He is the one Vine. We are the many branches, abiding in Him together.
It All Comes Down to Sacrificial Love
Jesus continued, "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."
(John 15:9-13)
Could we learn to love each other like He loves us? Could real joy be in giving ourselves away?
Even for Those Who Hurt Us?
Jesus calls us to love like He loves: “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you... If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same... But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful." (Luke 6:27-36)
He did this, but can we? Is this even possible? Could He actually enable us to love those who hurt us?
Could This Be Real Life?
Jesus told His disciples, "Whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it." (Mark 8:35)
Jesus prayed to His Father the night before His crucifixion, "This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." (John 17:3)
And that same night He prayed for us, "...that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us." (John 17:21)
Could real life be found in losing whatever we think is life for the sake of intimately knowing Him together with each other?