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Welcome to OneLife Ministries. This site is designed to lead you prayerfully into a heart experience of Divine Presence, Who is Love. While it focuses on Christian teaching, I hope persons of varied faiths will find inspiration here. Indeed, "God" can be whatever image helps us trust in the Sacred, by whatever means Grace touches us each. Please share this ministry with others, and please return soon. There is a new offering daily. And to be placed on the daily OneLife email list, to request notifications of new writings or submit prayer requests, write to briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
Blessings,
Brian Kenneth Wilcox MDiv, MFT, PhD
Interspiritual Pastor-Teacher, Author, Workshop Leader, Spiritual Counselor, and Chaplain.
Brian encourages support of the 4-Star Christian organization Compassion, which supports children worldwide; see www.compassion.com .
Spiritual Teaching
There is but one salvation for all humankind, and that is the life of God in the soul. God has but one design or intent towards all humankind and that is to introduce or generate God's own life, light, and Spirit in them, that all may be as so many images, temples and habitations of the Holy Trinity. This is God's good will to all Christians, Jews, and Pagans. They are all equally the desire of His heart, His light continually waits for an entrance into all of them; His wisdom cries, she puts forth her voice, not here or there but everywhere, in all the streets of all the parts of the world.
*William Law. The Spirit of Prayer. In William Law and Stephen Hobhouse. Selected Mystical Writings of William Law. Adapted for modern readers.
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January 1997 astronomers announced a discovery through the Hubble space telescope. Scientists looked into a cluster of some 2,500 galaxies called Virgo. They saw, for the first time, cosmic bodies theorized but never seen before. What they peered into, writes John Noble Wilford, in the New York Times, were stares without a galaxy to call home. The lone stars drift more than 300,000 light years from the closest galaxy - or three times the diameter of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Wilford writes, "Somewhere along the way, they wondered off or were tossed out of the galaxy of their birth, ... Astronomers theorize these isolated stars were displaced from their home galaxies as a result of galactic mergers or tidal waves from nearby galaxies. There they drifted free of the gravitational influence of any single galaxy."
Christian editor and writer Craig Brian Larson applies the above to the Christian: "[God] created us to be together in deep devotion to one another. He made us for the warmth of fellowship. He designed us to live in community" (Choice Contemporary Stories & Illustrations. "Isolation").
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The apostolic Church shows us a model to inspire us to being the Church, the ekklesia of Jesus:
42 All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, and to fellowship, and to sharing in meals (including the Lord’s Supper) (Greek, "breaking of bread"), and to prayer.
43 A deep sense of awe came over them all, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders. 44 And all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. 45 They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. 46 They worshiped together at the Temple each day, met in homes for the Lord’s Supper, and shared their meals with great joy and generosity[or, sincerity]—47 all the while praising God and enjoying the goodwill of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved.
*Acts 2.42-47 (NLT)
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St. Paul speaks of the warmth of genuine spiritual community. He says to the Church in Rome:
Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.
*Romans 12.10 (NLT)
St. Paul uses a word for family love. The Greek has: "spiritual brothers and sisters one another love with reciprocal tenderness."
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This experience of being the Church can happen in large groups, small groups, or between two persons:
19 “I also tell you this: If two of you agree here on earth concerning anything you ask, my Father in heaven will do it for you. 20 For where two or three gather together as my followers,[GK, "in my name"] I am there among them.”
*Matthew 18.19-20 (NLT)
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The Canadian Memorial Church & Centre for Peace notes a vital aspect of being a spiritual community of mutual sharing, or koinonia:
Know that how we behave toward one another is more important than what we believe, and that how we treat each other is the fullest manifestation of what we believe.
*www.canadianmemorial.org .
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Belief tends to be static. Community is dynamic, in process. What we say we believe about being the Church is not nearly as important as how we act to keep forming ourselves as the Church, the mystical Body of Christ in deepening intimacy.
Responding
1) What is the difference between the Church or a church as a static, materialistic idea and the Church or a church as a dynamic communion in process?
2) Why is it the Church does not require an institution for its manifesting?
3) What are some qualities that describe to you the true, spiritual Church?
4) In what ways are you experiencing the Church as a spiritual communion of followers of the Spirit of Christ?
5) Can "non-Christian" persons and faith groups be the Church in its true, spiritual, and dynamic sense? Explain your answer.
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*OneLife Ministries is a ministry of Brian Kenneth Wilcox, SW Florida. Brian lives a vowed life and with his two dogs, Bandit Ty and St. Francis, with friends and under a vow of simplicity. Brian is an ecumenical-interspiritual leader, who chooses not to identify with any group, and renounces all titles of sacredness that some would apply to him, but seeks to be open to how Christ manifests in the diversity of Christian denominations and varied religious-spiritual traditions. He affirms that all spiritual paths lead ultimately back to Jesus Christ. He is Senior Chaplain for the Charlotte County Sheriff's Office, Punta Gorda, FL.
*Brian welcomes responses to his writings or submission of prayer requests at briankwilcox@yahoo.com . Also, Brian is on Facebook: search Brian Kenneth Wilcox.
*Contact the above email to book Brian for preaching, Spiritual Direction, retreats, workshops, animal blessing services, house blessings, or other spiritual requests. You can order his book An Ache for Union from major booksellers.
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