A little bit about the Light of Christ
Simply put, we are a young Christian community seeking to live our lives together rooted in faith, hope, and love. Jesus Christ calls us to love God with all that we are and our neighbor as ourselves. This is both our ideal for life and impossible for us to achieve outside of the grace we believe he himself offers. We are a affiliate community of the Sword of the Spirit, an international network of Christian communities.
We began meeting in the fall of 2012 for regular meals, prayer, worship, teaching, and small groups. We have been inspired by the picture of the first Christian community described in Acts 2, and have tried to take on much of what's described there in a way that creatively engages our context of 21st century Grand Rapids Michigan. Our original name was the Community Living Experiment, and we became the Light of Christ community in the spring of 2017
We have been given many gifts as a body of believers. Some of the most significant include:
The Holy Spirit - We believe that Christians are supposed to know and experience a real relationship with God through the Holy Spirit, and endeavor to live day by day in that priceless gift. We affirm the power of the Spirit at work in the world today, and practice the gifts of the Spirit as described in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14.
Christian Unity - We are from many different Christian traditions, and are members of various Protestant, Catholic, and Orthodox churches. We know we can't fix the different divisions between our churches, but do seek to live a deeply Christian life together built on the foundation of Jesus Christ and the Word of God.
Generosity - God has been unbelievably generous to us and we in turn seek to be generous back to him, to each other, and to all we know. This includes giving of our time, our attention, and our money in order to love more fully.
Forgiveness and Mercy - We have been forgiven by God, and take seriously the call to give and receive forgiveness from each other as we falter or struggle in our community life together.
Commitment - Making and keeping commitments is part of the glory of being human, and we strive for our yes to God and each other to truly be yes.
Welcome - We are delighted for anyone to join us for our regular dinner and prayer meetings.
A few other things of note:
Check out our calendar for the details. We'd love for you to join us!
Many of us are alumni of a campus ministry called University Christian Outreach in Grand Rapids or elsewhere, and currently several Light of Christ members serve on staff with UCO.
You can find us on Facebook here - Light of Christ.
