Marine scientists want us to call them Sea Stars, AKA Starfish, well known for their reproductive capability. Some species of starfish can regenerate a whole new body from a piece of a severed limb. It can multiply from any part cut off from its base because each part has replicating capability, DNA, to create a new organism after its kind. Mind-blowing! Spiders, however, are a one-trick pony. None of its parts have reproductive capabilities. If a spider loses a leg, it is doomed. Cut off its head, it dies. Do the same to a starfish, it multiplies.

When we practice the ingredients of healthy Church with participatory facilitation and when our Vision, Mission, and Values are integrated into our Communities, ownership happens. Reproductive capability is assumed. So that whether you are cut off from Sunday gatherings or have moved to a new city, you can—as a severed limb so to speak—start, cultivate, multiply, and sustain Communities wherever you go. You can be like a starfish. Communities are our mode of pastoring, disciple making, and living on mission. They are the means by which the official truth (i.e. what is posted on our beliefs page) and on the ground truth (what happens in our lives) become reality.

Communities are how we live and talk so as to make it obvious that CHURCH is a daily occurrence, not one-day centric. New Testament scholar, N.T. Wright states, “The Church is first and foremost a community, a collection of people who belong to one another because they belong to God, the God we know in and through Jesus.”

Like waking to a new day, we have to possess with fresh eyes an understanding of church that’s primarily informed by scripture, not by experience, not traditionally informed, but bare bones scripturally informed. What has God said? What is the church? What does it do? How does it function? When does it meet? Where does it meet? How does it multiply? As I look at the Western church impacted by COVID-19 I see she is learning, amid great frustration, to not be a spider.