(November - December 2025)
Doctrinal Focus - Incarnation
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. - John 1:14
John’s gospel account begins with a stunning declaration - the co-eternal, co-creator, fully divine, second person of the Trinity assumed humanity and dwelt among us. God’s design in creation was for His people to enjoy His presence, but this ideal was disrupted when sin entered the world - severing the fellowship between God and man. However, in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son to dwell among fallen creation (Gal. 4:4). In the incarnation, Christ Jesus did not set aside his divinity, but rather, assumed humanity - existing now as fully God and fully man - the one in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell (Col. 1:19-20).
Jesus’ purpose in taking on human flesh was the cross. At Calvary, the God-man was able to accomplish the reconciling work of our redemption. As a human, Jesus was able to obey God’s law perfectly, offering himself as a sinless substitute in our place. As the Divine Son, Christ was able to bear the righteous wrath of God, overcoming sin and death through his glorious resurrection. The incarnation was essential to complete our salvation.
When Christ returns for his bride, we have the beautiful promise that the dwelling place of God will once again be with man in the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 21:3). We live today between two Advents - between Jesus’ first and second coming. As we await Christ’s return, we can embody the same spirit of his incarnation through our hospitality, our unity as a church, and our care for one another (Phil. 2:1-11).
Disciplined Practice - Hospitality
The incarnational life calls us to discover God not only in sacred moments but in the ordinary rhythms of daily living (Col. 3:17). It reminds us that faith is not a compartmentalized devotion but a way of being that infuses every act, every relationship, and every task with divine significance. As Teilhard de Chardin writes, “Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things…as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value.” This is the essence of the incarnational life — that the divine presence is woven through the fabric of ordinary life.
Hospitality becomes the tangible expression of this incarnational way. It is the spiritual discipline through which our inward faith takes outward form. To be hospitable is to make room — in our schedules, our homes, and our hearts — for the presence of Christ in others and relationships. It is to practice love in its most ordinary and embodied sense: welcoming, feeding, listening, and caring.
Living in community prevents our spirituality from drifting into abstraction or self-referential isolationism. While solitude may teach us who we are in Christ, community teaches us whose we are — that we belong to one another as members of his body.
The Desert Fathers tell a story that illuminates this truth: one said, “From the time I (arrived), the sun has never seen me eating.” Another replied, “As for me, as long as I have lived in community, the sun has never seen me angry.” The first monk claims a kind of ascetic purity in solitude, but the second turns the focus: what is more difficult and more virtuous is to live among others without anger or conflict. As St. Basil asks, “Whose feet, therefore, will you wash? To whom will you minister? In comparison with whom will you be the lowest, if you live alone?” Hospitality, then, is not simply an act of kindness; it is the crucible of humility and transformation. It draws us out of isolation and into the shared labor of love where God’s image is revealed in the other.
How to Engage - Practicing hospitality can begin simply. Here are some suggestions. 1) Choose one day a week — perhaps Sunday — to avoid screens unless they serve a communal purpose, such as watching a family movie. (2) Invite someone over from Bellwether who has never been to your home to share a meal together. (3) For Thanksgiving, have a “Friend’s-Giving” Dinner with your Bellwether Small Group.
Directed Affections- Unity
Hospitality flows from an affection rightly directed — being unified. “It isn’t that (monastic) communities don’t have lives of their own,” writes Joan Chittister. “It is simply that to the monastic, life without the other is only half a life.” Connection is not merely social; it is spiritual. Simply put, you miss out on something essential to the Christian life when you are isolated. And I’m writing this as an introvert. To live interdependently and connected is to resist the illusion of self-sufficiency and to recognize that God’s grace often comes to us most tangibly through the hands and words of others.
To be unified is to live as though belonging were sacred — to one another, to creation, and to God. It is to practice empathy over efficiency, presence over performance, relationship over routine. When our affections are rightly ordered toward connection, hospitality ceases to be an obligation and becomes a natural joy. Likewise, it’s in relationships that our hard edges are worn off. Your spiritual growth is contingent on how willing you are to live in authentic community.
Potential Spiritual Pitfalls - N.T. Wright warns that “we confuse community with living in groups. Yet lots of people who seem to be living with others are simply living alone together.” The danger is to mistake proximity for connection, or activity for communion. We can attend worship, share meals, even serve together — and still miss the transforming power of God’s presence if our hearts remain guarded or distracted. The discipline of hospitality calls us beyond the religiosity of routine and into the vulnerability of meaningful relationships. When we engage one another not as tasks or numbers but as fellow image bearers of God, we find that being unified is itself an act of worship.
Small Group Discussion
Read Philippians 2:1-11. How does Jesus’ incarnation relate to our practice of
hospitality and display of unity?
How can we embrace this unified life more authentically in our small group?
What hinders us from deeper connections in small group?
What small steps can we take to foster intimacy? (Hint: break bread together)