BY DAVID GOODRICH, MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCIPAL

I’ve been thinking a great deal about what it means to be a part of the covenant community. Are we on this journey of life together? Are we better off individually for being a part of the community? Are we stronger together than we would be separately?

James 5:16-20 states, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working… My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.”  It is clear from James that we are called to community, and we need each other desperately. 

Finding Shalom Through Fellowship

As I meditate on this truth, I am reminded that Shalom (hope, peace, healing, freedom, etc.) is found in covenant fellowship. The covenant community serves as an agent for the sanctifying work of the Creator and is often used to bring restoration and reconciliation to the brokenhearted.  We can often strengthen each other so we won’t wander, or even bring each other back when we stray off the path. We were designed to have each other’s backs.

Every week in my life-on-life discipleship group I am reminded of the great benefits found in community.  A former colleague of mine joined my d-group a little over two years ago.  At the outset of his journey, I spoke with his wife and asked her what she wanted to see the Lord do in and through his life. As tears streamed down her cheek, she stated, “I just want him to rise up and become the spiritual leader of the home.  I want him to become the husband and father that the Lord is calling him to be.”  As I listened to her describe her deep longing for godly authority and a renewal in her marriage, I was reminded of my own journey. 

At the beginning of my discipleship journey, my former mentor also called my wife and asked her how he could be praying.  Her response was astonishing. She told him that her deepest desire for my life was to see the “head become the heart.”  I remember that time so vividly! I had a deep love and passion for knowledge and the theological truths; unfortunately, they had never penetrated my heart. However, after submitting to the authority of the church and my mentor, I can truly say that my heart was changed. Because someone in my covenant family chose to invest in me, I was brought back from my wandering.   Although, I still find myself falling short of the glory of God, I know that Philippians 1:6 is true: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Grounded and Growing Through Community

The covenant community brings lasting change, eternal restoration of the soul, and reconciliation. All of us were at some point devoid of hope without Christ. Ephesians 2: 4-8 declares, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Our participation in the covenant community helps us stay grounded and growing in our hope. We are called to join the covenant family to truly find Shalom.

Commitment to Our Covenant Family

Would you consider joining me in reaffirming our commitment to the covenant family of Perimeter School?  Let’s have each other’s backs. Let’s choose to invest in one another so that we will all be stronger individually and as a body. Let’s point each other to our Savior. Shalom is available to us. We can find it together.