The Old Has Passed

It’s hard to recall what each of the art pieces looked like, what songs we sang or even what words were exchanged that night.

But though the details are often fuzzy to recollect, you can always remember what it felt like at the end of Orthopraxis. The undeniable joy settling in the air, the tight hugs, the co-mingling of new faces and old—of pastors and members and those who hadn’t decided yet. It was like the tangible shifting of the seasons, like the first day of spring.  

That night, everyone had a story to tell, and some expressed theirs beautifully through the art of creative mediums. Without words, they could articulate what forgiveness looked like, what redemption felt like, what this season meant for them; and without further explanation or descriptions, we inherently understood. Because, here at the end of Orthopraxis, we had experienced it too.

Amidst the buzz of excitement and festivities, there were moments when it began to click into place as we looked around the room: that the healing and restoration we might have experienced individually were actually woven into a grander narrative of stories. Here, between the gallery walls that proudly displayed the visual and audible stories of our blossoming tribe, we all began to realize we shared in it together. That the old has passed, and the new has come.

Because of this decision we don’t evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don’t look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! 

2 Cor. 5:17 (MSG)

That night, we weren’t just celebrating the end of Friday night meetings or the end of readings and homework. We weren’t even celebrating the fact we could now become a member or serve here at the church we’d grown to love so much.

We were celebrating the beginning of something new. Individually and corporately.

At Ekko, Orthopraxis is the introduction for those embarking on a lifetime of discipleship with Jesus. The reason why we celebrate its end with food and festivities and with the sharing of testimonies and stories is not that it marks the end of a season, but because it marks the beginning. The beginning of a life-long discipleship with our Lord.

Just as a bar/bat mitzvah symbolizes a son or daughter’s “age of maturity” and marks a shift in their lives where they are now responsible for what they have learned, Orthopraxis Celebration is the time where our tribe recognizes each person who has participated in this process of discipleship, looks at them square in the eye, and says, “We believe you can look more like Jesus.”

But Celebration isn’t just for the graduates.

Celebration is for the members too.

It’s in the discipline of celebration that we begin to find ourselves reminded of how we first came to the Lord, how we began to learn how to forgive and heal, how we began to become who God dreamt we would be. You see, it is when we celebrate the beginning of someone else’s season that we too are drawn back into the grand Story that God is writing in the here and now. God begins to reignite the memories we had when we went through our own introductions of discipleship.

“We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn’t mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It’s a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them.”

— Donald Miller

It is in celebrating one another that we are reminded that we, too, are called to a lifetime of discipleship.

That we, too, still need God’s grace and mercy.

And that we, too, are on a journey of looking more and more like Jesus.

You are invited to celebrate with our Orthopraxis graduates on May 18, 2018. You can RSVP for Celebration here; all friends and family are welcome to attend. Dinner will be served. Come dressed to impress!