This is our mission, vision, and commission. This is our story.
Jesus loved to tell stories that began with, “The kingdom of God is like….” He would then tell a story that would evoke hope, joy, and surprise to his listeners. There would always be some unexpected twist: something that started small would become big, something lost would be found, the least likely candidate would become the hero of the story. The least worthy in the world’s eyes were given places of honor at the banquet table.
This is what we have learned to look for within our own stories so that we, too, may see and experience the kingdom of God.
Everything we do here—recovery meetings, small groups, one-on-ones, Sunday church gatherings, Re:Bar Cafe, Steampunk Juice—all of it is to notice and point out the sacred within the ordinary, and we’ve been given the grace to be able to see it everyday. We find it in families, friends, and strangers. We’ve learned that the best kind of hope comes when it’s hard won, just on the other side of hopelessness. Some show up addicted to a substance, some show up addicted to their own trains of thought, to the false beliefs that keep them stuck in old stories that don’t serve them anymore.
At The Renewal Center, we’re inviting ourselves and others into a new chapter in our collective story, THE story, in which resurrection follows all of the things we have to die to. And we’re seeing that some pages and chapters of our stories can feel daunting and hopeless, but Hope always writes the last line, Love always has the final say.
And, we love it, and it’s imperfectly perfect, or perfectly imperfect depending on how you see, and there is always, always room for one more. Because with God there is always more. So we keep making room, and you are invited in because as Kelly always says, “we’re just not us without you.”
So come get in. Include yourself. Let your life be written into ours. Come into the beauty of so many individual stories colliding together into a much bigger story than is possible when we are going at it alone. As our friend Shellee Coley sings so beautifully,
We may trip and fall on each other…because we’re tangled up so tight…but we’ll just keep on loving each other…until we finally get it right…so…I hope we never get it right.
