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| The Tangible Kingdom Primer |
Gospel:
the good news of Jesus,
capable of transforming everything
about a person, their community,
and their world
As Emmaus City Church steps into Spring 2025 with a focus on prayer, holiness, courage, and faith (i.e. good risk and trust), we're revisiting a map for a 2-month journey that helped shape us for our first decade as the first congregation of missional communities (MCs) in Worcester, Massachusetts.
The Tangible Kingdom Primer: An Eight-Week Guide to Incarnational Community helped our first City Group (MC) lean into apprenticeship with Jesus together. And the memories, lessons, and formative experiences have continued to shape people among Emmaus City in fruitful ways to this day. You can read more here:
TKP: Apprenticeship in Jesus' Way
TKP: Apprenticeship in Jesus' Way
While one brief post can never replace what day-by-day meditations, practices, steps of faith, and reflections provide, this adapted excerpt from Week 3 (Tuesday, March 18 — Monday, March 24, 2025) of The TK Primer is provided as a review of content to come back to and to provide food for thought for when City Groups connect for our Sabbath gathering on the 5th day (Saturday, March 22 in this case).
What Is the Gospel?
Day 1: Exploration
The definition of the word gospel is "good news." It's a simple word for something big. In fact, the Gospel that Jesus talked about was so big that He had to give people many different teachings and practical examples. His Gospel was about a new Kingdom that would change everything about a person, their community, and their world.
Imagine what could change if the Good News of Jesus's life, death, and resurrection was allowed to shape and inform all the areas of our lives.
Key Exploration Questions
When and how have you experienced the Good News of the Kingdom?
Write down how you would describe it to someone if they asked you, "So what is the Gospel?"
Day 2: Meditation
The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me:
to preach good news to the poor
to bind up the brokenhearted
to proclaim freedom for the captives and
release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor
to comfort all who mourn and
because the Lord has anointed me:
to preach good news to the poor
to bind up the brokenhearted
to proclaim freedom for the captives and
release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor
to comfort all who mourn and
(to) provide for those who grieve
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning, and
a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair
Key Meditation Questions
When you think of the Gospel, what area(s) of your life have you most often connected it to?
What parts of your life today do you still need to apply the Gospel to?
What parts of your life today do you still need to apply the Gospel to?
Day 3: Change
The Gospel of the Kingdom
is about movement and change.
When the Good News
comes into our lives and
we begin to trust Jesus and
His completed work on our behalf,
we are brought into God's family —
a community of believers —
and then filled with and
guided by His own Holy Spirit.
Jesus said,
"Peace be with you!
As the Father sent Me,
I am sending you."
The Gospel
creates Community
that is sent on Mission.
Gospel
If we have put our faith in Jesus, we have been saved from the penalty for our sins (justification). We are also being saved from the power of sin in our life today (sanctification). And we will be saved from the presence of sin when Jesus returns and restores all things back to the way God originally created them (glorification).
The Gospel is God's power to save us
but it also gives us our purpose
as part of His family on mission.
but it also gives us our purpose
as part of His family on mission.
Community
The Gospel unites diverse groups of people together in Christ. The call of community isn't about finding people just like us, or excluding those who aren't. True gospel community is the result of God making us His family as we then live out our lives of love and service to each other and the world empowered by His Spirit.
Mission
Gospel mission reflects God's simple call to remake the world, and people's lives, back to the way He originally created them to be. Living on God's mission helps us to remember that life is not all about me and my personal happiness. It's about being and making disciples of Jesus who show the world what God is truly like.
We are God's missionary family
sent to serve the world through
displaying and declaring
this Good News.
A Kingdom life lived on mission
is really about living ordinary,
everyday life in community,
with great Gospel intentionality.
Key Change Question
When you think about letting the Gospel have your whole life, what are you afraid of?
Day 4: Action
Where is God already at work
in your neighborhood? In your city?
Watch for the Gospel in unexpected places.
Where in your life do you interact with
people who are helping to bring redemption?
Think about people in your neighborhood,
your job, your school, and the places
you spend time.
Make a list where your life
interacts with God's activity in their lives.
In the next few days, be "good news"
to some of the people above.
Think about blessings in 3 categories:
words
actions
gifts
Ask God to show you 3 people
you can intentionally bless this week.
Day 5: Community
Every person has these four parts in their story ... have you ever noticed that? Remember, your story is a part of the ultimate Story — God's Story. When you are telling your story, focus on God and how Jesus rescued and saved you. You should not end up looking like the hero in this story — God is your hero.
Creation
How did your life begin?
Key Question:
Key Question:
Who or what most shaped
who you thought you were,
and where you got your
real value and "identity"
in life from?
Fall
What was happening in your life
that was "broken" —
NOT the way God created
it and you to be?
Key Question:
Why was your relationship
with God and others,
(and anything else in your life),
NOT the way it was supposed to be?
Redemption
Explain how sin and
the effects of sins in your life
were rescued and redeemed
by Jesus.
Connect specific sins to the Gospel
and how Jesus' life, death, and
resurrection have redeemed and
restored those parts of your life
back to the way God created them to be.
Key Question:
How has Jesus paid the penalty
for your sins
(when He died on the Cross)
and how did you come
to put your faith and trust in Him
to save you and restore you?
Restoration
What is happening in your life now?
How is God changing you, using you,
speaking to you now?
Key Question:
What has changed and
is changing in your life now?
And who or what
is the focus of your life today?
Include two examples
of how the Gospel
(Jesus at work in your life)
is showing up in your everyday life
and relationships as good news.
Group Discussion:
Take turns telling your own Gospel stories through the lenses of Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration. Tips: Keep it short. Don't get "preachy" or "churchy." Keep God and Jesus the "main characters."
Day 6: Calibration
Until the Gospel
gets bigger in our own lives,
we'll have a hard time
displaying and declaring it
to the world.
As we face this,
we discover an opportunity
to open ourselves
to a much deeper transformation.
We find ways to let God speak
into every nook and cranny
of our lives.
Day 7: ReCreate
Rest and consider:
The work of growing "new life"
in us or in others
is God's work.
God may use us to scatter seeds
of the Gospel,
but we can rest in His ability
to bring growth.
Gospel Worship Songs
+ God So Loved
+ God So Loved
Next Post
TKP Wk 4: What Is Community?
Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back.
Kindle and seize us.
Be our fire and our sweetness.
Let us love. Let us run ...
Let us sing a new song,
Not with our lips but with our lives.
+ North African St. Augustine
May God's Kingdom come, His will be done.
Que le Royaume de Dieu vienne,
que sa volonté soit faite.
愿神的国降临，愿神的旨意成就。
Nguyện xin Nước Chúa đến, ý Ngài được nên.
Jesús nuestra Rey, venga Tu reino!
🙏💗🍞🍷👑🌅🌇
Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan
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