HOPE Chapel

(By Nora Wheeler)

For those of you that do not know much about the IMPACT Communities maybe I can help. I wasn't real keen with the idea at first.  I mean, we already did some service projects, so what about in-reach, you know, caring for each other? That was my biggest concern.

I was involved over the last few years with a lot of service projects and someone would announce a service project and all I had to do was show up. It was simple. I liked that. If I could make it, I would, or if it was a really cool one, I'd bring my granddaughter Olivia with me too. It was fun and easy and it was another way I could serve God by helping people I didn't know and meet new people in my church.  I was willing to use the little time I did have, to serve by raking leaves, serving in carnivals, things that would ignite me for a while. Then I started to wonder if I really was serving God or just making myself feel better?   I would go one a service project and often the strong feeling of being unified and useful did encourage me.... but something was missing.  When I went home it meant going into the fire of all those responsibilities of life and it was utterly exhausting. Then another exciting service project would come up and that feeling of being ignited re-fueled me but again, but it never lasted, reality always crept in of going home. What confused me the most is that I would serve on a team and some people actually never spoke a word to me. The connectedness I wanted was not there.

So I decided to be a part of an Impact Community (IC) and now that we are 3 months into this IC, I can see already it's definitely one of the best decisions of my life! This group took the basics of reaching out and building relationships within our communities to a whole new level of commitment. I realize how much we would grow spiritually, in so many ways within OUR TEAM (which makes sense, now that I think about it.) If your goal is to reach out to your community and build personal relationships with people, you should all be on the same page, right?  

The commitments of the IC at first scared me.  I thought: “this is real serious; maybe I should not do it.” We all agreed to do several things, one of which was to read the entire New Testament by July. Yikes! We had a guide of course and there is much grace and encouragement given to carry on. Then we had to agree to have an accountable person we would meet with regularly. I so, so, so, did not like that idea AT ALL.  I want to build deep relationships, but not have someone I had to be accountable too!!! I thought with my luck it will get someone I really don't like. But it seems God knows what is best for me. I am utterly surprised how much I look forward to spending time with my accountability partner now. How I have learned from her wisdom, patience and kindness and I know I have encouraged her as well. She is one of the kindest persons I have ever met, and I know I can fully trust her with confidential things. I started to feel like family with in her family, and I did not expect that. And I actually like her!!!

We have meetings twice a month where our entire IC gets together.  I was cool with that. I've met people I would have never met at HC from the shyest to the “not” so shyest.  Despite the wide variety of personalities, we are becoming family.  There is no one here that does not intentionally NOT talk to everyone!  Each time we meet we have an ice breaker activity and then during our large group time, subjects range from: talking about many things from what we have learned so far from our journey through the New Testament, our time spent serving, what new plans we have for a party, football game, new opportunities to build relationships, and our new series at HC called "Gods Story".

What is so amazing and refreshing, quite honestly it brings me to tears, is how we all share in the responsibilities of the IC.  It reminds me of a missions trip where we lived in unity where everyone had a job. The Bible tells us God has no favorites and there are no favorites here as well. No one will "burn out.” in our IC, it's just simply not allowed (which also reminds me of Act 2). Something I have always dreamed of. We are also encouraged to step out of our comfort zones with this job sharing.  Yikes! I signed up to plan one of our outreaches and I have no idea how to do that, but I know I don't have to worry because there will be someone to help me to learn how to do it.  We also spend time in smaller groups where we can be more intimate with our lessons and prayer time.

It's so cool to see God work in amazing ways in such a short amount of time. This is how you build deep relationships. I can now see in Scripture that this is how they did it too. In 3 short months, I've built close relationships within our group I never expected. We are all growing inward and outward, stepping way out of our comfort zones. We truly are working in unity, in one accord. Our prayer time is IMPACTING our lives, our church and the world. Some, maybe a lot of people, are scared of change, including me, but I learned many years ago to trust and submit. That is what I did here and I am so glad I did!!! My favorite Bible verse fit's so well here “watch and be UTTERLY AMAZED for I will do a work in your day, that even if it were told to you, you would not believe.” (Habakkuk 1:5) ..... so true!!!