This week, Emily discusses “Encounter”, one of our core values at Leeds Sanctuary.
All of us, every day, have encounters. We encounter others in our homes, in our apartment buildings, down our streets, at school, on public transport, in the shops; the list goes on and the possibilities are endless.
But encounter isn’t always easy. Sometimes we may have an interest or a passion and not know anyone else who shares it. We may be treading water and not know how to slow things around us down. We might be curious to learn more about something but not know where to start. General encounters might be easy to come across, but the ones we need the most can be harder to find.
Kosuke Koyama suggests in his book “Three Mile an Hour God” that as Christians, our “promised life… means intersected life. It is not an isolated life. It is a life busily engaged in encounters. It is a life not at home on the museum shelf. It is on-the-street-life.” The Bible is absolutely packed with meaningful encounters which happen in all sorts of different spaces and places – Moses encountered God as the Burning Bush while going about his day as a shepherd; Mary was visited by the Angel Gabriel during a private moment; The Woman at the Well receives an invitation to faith from Jesus while she draws water; Paul is stopped by Jesus while persecuting Christians – the list goes on!
We hope to create an intersected network of communities which offers opportunities for meaningful encounter for all. These could be wellness communities, activism communities, discipleship communities… who knows where our future encounters will take us?