Invisible

Homeless. nameless. faceless. invisible.
God break our hearts!

just taking Jesus seriously

Breaking Through to Community

In confession the break-through to community takes place. Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in it, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light. In the darkness of the unexpressed it poisons the whole being of a person. This can happen even in the midst of a pious community. In confession the light of the Gospel breaks into the darkness and seclusion of the heart. The sin must be brought into the light. The unexpressed must be spoken openly and acknowledged. All that is secret and hidden is made manifest. It is a hard struggle until the sin is openly admitted. But God breaks gates of brass and bars of iron (Ps. 107:16).

Since the confession of sin is made in the presence of a Christian brother, the last stronghold of self-justification is abandoned. The sinner surrenders; he gives up his evil. He gives his heart to God, and he finds the forgiveness of all his sin in the fellowship of Jesus Christ and his brother. The expressed, acknowledged sin has lost all its power. It has been revealed and judged as sin. It can no longer tear the fellowship asunder. He is no longer alone with his evil for he has cast off his sin in confession and handed it over to God. It has been taken away from him. Now he stands in the fellowship of sinners who live by the grace of God in the Cross of Jesus Christ. Now he can be a sinner and still enjoy the grace of God. He can confess his sins and in this very act find fellowship for the first time. The sin concealed separated him from the fellowship, made all his apparent fellowship a sham, the sin confessed has helped him to find true fellowship with the brethren in Jesus Christ.

Moreover, what we have said applies solely to confession between two Christians. A confession of sin in the presence of all the members of the community is not required to restore one to fellowship with the whole community. I meet the whole community in the one brother to whom I confess my sins and who forgives my sins. In the fellowship I find with this one brother I have already found fellowship with the whole congregation. In this manner no one acts in his own name nor by his own authority, but by the commission of Jesus Christ. The commission is given to the whole and the individual is called merely to exercise it for the community. If a Christian is in the fellowship of confession with another brother he will never be alone again, anywhere.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Life Together

How I found the Lake House

I came to Tampa a short while ago. I felt I was called here, but when when I got here I wasn't sure why I was here or what I was doing here. I ran into someone on the streets who like me was homeless. We were walking by hyde park and ran into some ladies handing out some flyers for this place called the underground. I didn't think much of it at the time so I folded up the paper and put it in my pocket. We went to find something to eat and a place to lay our heads for the night. The next day we decided to walk to ybor. Don't know why, I guess we didn't have anything better to do being homeless and all. It was about 1pm and we where tired of walking so we sat in front of this building. This guy came out and said you can come in and watch tv or use the computers, his name was jon. Though at the time we forgot about the piece of paper in our pocket. Jon told us about where we were, told us about the well and the underground and we remembered the lady handing us a flyer about the conference they just had there. He sat with us for a while talking and getting to know each other a little bit. He invited us over to his house for dinner. He called his house the Lake House. At the time I didn't know about micro churches and what they did. I just knew that I needed to go trying to make new friends in Tampa area. I was also trying to find some peace of mind by finding out why I felt called to Tampa. Well we went to dinner at the Lake House and found much more than just dinner. I found friendships and fellowship I've never encountered throughout my travels across the USA. Though I already had the Lord in my life it came even stronger. Jon told me what his community was about, how he had 10 people living together in community and how they try to help the homeless community. I stayed for their time of worship that night and felt a peace that I have never felt. Then and there I wanted to be a part of what they do to help their community in tampa. Even though I am homeless I felt called to stay around and help in any way I could. So jon showed me how I could help and I started to volunteer for with the banquet and again I felt that sense of peace. I still go go over to the Lake House and am friends with everybody there. They are all good and kind people and I've learned a lot from all of them. So thank you lake house, you've changed my life

-Tomas

A Sustainable Faith...the lake house way?

These past few weeks have brought to light many changes that we are all undergoing in each of our lives and how they impact us individually and in turn communally. I am learning that we must continue to strive, in spite of these changes, only 0n the heart of God. Life can weigh us down and we will burden ourselves with bringing the kingdom of God to our surroundings. We will do this, so often, without first pursuing God then all of what we do becomes efforts of the flesh, and my friends we are not strong enough, eloquent enough, or wise enough to accomplish even one step towards that kingdom. In fact we will fall backwards and do more damage than we could any good. We have to stay focused on seeking and discerning the plan for our lives and building a faith that is sustainable through the mess that we live in. The fact that we choose to live in the messiest parts of this mess carries with it a knowledge that we make life harder for ourselves for the benefit of others. But knowing at any moment we have the means to run away can become a temptation when we are burnt out, tired, betrayed or cold hearted. Sustainable faith is a faith dependent on God and seeking his will not what we imagine his will would be. There is a difference between helping a person because the bible says to help people, and being prompted by the spirit to help someone, or tell someone something, or just listening to someone. The later is much more effective, much more after the heart of God because he knows what each man needs within each moment. That is not to say we should not do work until we "feel God calling us to do work," we are always called to work and live in the mission field, whatever field that may be for you. But I have learned that we must seek God first. We must pray and fast and seek to hear from Him. He is our focus. If we maintain an active pursuit of a vertical faith in God, the horizontal love for each other will come naturally, and as we grow with Him so will we grow with each other. Our love will go beyond the brother in front of you and extend to the one you don't even know. Sustainable faith, dependent on the pursuit of God first will give us the strength to handle the tough changes in life and community. It will also give us direction in the areas we remain stagnant in. He will give us direction.

BTW, I am not sure of the way this conference will use the term sustainable faith, I just really like the term and felt it applied. Even more than that I love the poster itself...Jon D. reppin the Lake House. He tried.