As told by Jim Gray, ReGen's Lead Pastor
It all started with a Spirit-dream to create a community that could connect with people who have either given up on church, or have never had the opportunity to experience a faith community in the first place. It all started with that and two guys praying outside of a bar for four hours at two in the morning.
Two years later, ReGeneration L.A. has come into its own as a legitimate faith community. Not that we have it all figured out - in fact, far from it. But what we do have is a story: a story of God moving and of people who have moved with him.
For those readers unfamiliar with what ReGeneration L.A. is about, allow me to briefly explain: ReGeneration L.A. (or ReGen for short) is a Los Angeles based church committed to building a spiritual, faith-based community that allows people who are "turned-off" by the typical way of "doing church" to find their place in the Kingdom of God by providing a safe context in which people at many different places on their spiritual journeys can build relationships with each other, ask serious questions, and mature in their own spiritual growth. The ultimate goal is to be a church that builds the Kingdom of God by transforming both individuals and local communities through creating disciples that make disciples and churches that plant churches by loving God, loving people, and training ourselves to become like Christ in character and in action.
Quite a mouthful.
But really, I make it sound more complex than it is. Simply put, ReGen is highly relational in nature, as is the process of discipleship. Heart on heart. Life on life. Skin on skin. Loving people for no other reason than because they are valuable to God. Investing in people's lives; walking with them on their journeys. Sharing their joys and their sorrows. Hearing their stories. Being authentic. Making peace and fighting for justice for the poor and oppressed. Caring for the widows and the orphans (often times literally). Offering people a place in God's Kingdom. That's what its all about.
To that end, ReGen doesn't meet in a building. I don't have an office. I split my office hours between my room at ReGen's ministry house, Hesed Manor (which is always open to people), and local coffee shops. ReGen functions as a network of closely-related, like-minded house churches (which we call "Clusters") where people can come and get invested in each other's lives, and ask real, tough, honest questions. These clusters meet in people's homes in different locations throughout the L.A. area.
The closest thing that ReGen has to a central location is Hesed Manor (from the Hebrew hesed meaning "God's Love"). Hesed Manor actually used to be a meth-lab before ReGen got its hands on it. How did that happen? Someone fixed it up and gave it to us. So now, I live there with five other Christian men and our seventeen-year-old foster kid who is well on his way to becoming a man of God himself. Through God's grace, we have slowly begun to transform our community - our house used to be known to deal in death and slavery; now it deals in life and freedom. The neighborhood kids come over and play baseball in our yard because its safe; the students from the local high-schools come over after school to do their homework (and eat all our food); local college students come over to study and talk with one another.
Each Sunday evening, our whole community (i.e., all the clusters) come together at Hesed Manor to do something as an entire body. We don't always do the same thing. Sometimes we just fellowship and have a huge meal together; other times we kick it in the back around the fire-pit; other times we have our monthly Worship Gathering.
Discipleship to Jesus Christ and the transformation into His likeness that comes along with it are a long process, not an overnight fix. Regeneration by the Spirit doesn't end with coming to a saving knowledge of Christ; it begins there.
That's why ReGen is committed to being a community of discipleship - a community that seeks to transform both individuals and groups of people for the Kingdom: one block, one college dormitory, one urban neighborhood at a time. It's not about finding a cooler, hipper way to do church; it's not about a funny message or great music (though sometimes we have both). It is about discipleship, which happens because of a Person - the Person of Jesus Christ. It is about allowing Christ to stand between us and our brothers and sisters, and remembering that the Church exists for the sake of others to glorify Christ.
And surely He will be with us to the end of the age.
Soli Deo Gloria.
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