Our Kick-Off Night
Last night was a very special night for 7 Mile Road in that it was the beginning of a new season in the life of this church plant. In one sense, we were putting our hand to the plow and not looking back. Our plan – and of course God is free to change this at any point in any way He wants – but our prayerful plan is to commence a season of meeting weekly on Sunday nights all the way until we are ready to publicly launch 7 Mile Road. As God allows, we intend from this point on to gather weekly until we sense that we’ve hit the right stride for us to launch and move into the next phase.
Sunday Nights
So what will Sunday nights look like? What we’re doing on these nights is not a worship service, nor is it even a Bible study. So what are we doing?
We’ll share a meal together. The dinner part of these nights is not an optional thing, or something that we’ve just arbitrarily added on. It’s really an important part of what we do. Eating together is something the people of God have always done throughout the Scriptures. Feasting, fellowshipping – all of that is hugely important. In the Jewish culture of the Bible, and in the practice of the early church, corporate meals were a central part of a community. So every week in this season, we’re sharing a meal.
We’ll pray together. Prayer will be another part of the life of this Launch Team. We meet for prayer at my apartment on Thursday nights. We pray for the city, we pray for people who don’t know Jesus, we pray for the church plant, we pray for other churches in Philadelphia and beyond, and we pray for each other. We really want to birth 7MR in prayer. Additionally, some of what we’ll do on Sunday nights is pray. Right from the start, we want to sow into the DNA of our church a commitment to faithful, persistent, desperate, God-centered prayer.
We’ll discuss the Scriptures and our values together. Each week, we’ll also be looking at the Scriptures. As we’re laying the foundation for this new church, we’ll turn to the Scriptures – hear God’s word, talk about God’s word, and then talk about how that Word can find flesh and blood application in our church, in this time and place. So we’re going to go over the different values of 7 Mile Road and each of those values will be rooted in God’s Word.
We’ll welcome new people together. These Sunday night gatherings are open. And so we’re welcoming new people to come to these nights. If you know people who share a heart for what 7MR is about, they are welcome.
Luke 24:13-35
We read the Scriptures together and talked about what we saw in the story. We talked about realities in the story that we hoped would be realities in our lives and at 7 Mile Road Church. Over the next few weeks, we will unpack each of these together and explore how it can be a reality in our midst.
Prayer
We concluded our time by submitting ourselves, the Launch Team, and our city to the Lord. What a great night.
by Ajay Thomas
Ajay lives in Philadelphia with his wife Shainu and their kids Hannah and Micah. He is responsible for preaching and vision as a pastor at Seven Mile Road.