KONOMALA

Hey friends! Hope you’re all having a meaningful start to the new year.

Over the past month, as a church, we’ve been spending some intentional time talking about how we can be living our lives together in God’s mission for us as His family. One recent conversation in particular was really encouraging to us. It was with a small group of faithful people in the church, and it wasn’t complicated or strategic — it was honest, reflective, and motivating.

We were talking about a range of things from remembering the gospel to standing firm in the truth. In the middle of it we spent time remembering the simple yet so profound reality of how much we need each other. 

Life is hard at times. Seasons of busyness, struggle, distraction, or fatigue come and go a lot more often than we’d like. And when those seasons hit, our natural tendency is often to isolate and try to figure things out on our own … and we all know where that kind of life leads. Independence is often strived for in our culture here in Konomala just like it is back home. We so often reject the reality that from the very beginning, God’s design wasn’t that we would walk alone, but that we would learn how to walk with each other. Independence might feel strong or efficient in the moment, but it never results in the kind of life God intends for us.

This last few months has been characterized by busyness and struggle for some people in the church. Life has become heavy, and rather than leaning in, quite a few people have slowly pulled back. During our conversation the other day, a couple of the ladies began reflecting on the last few years of our lives together as a church. They started naming specific moments where they had been loved, supported, helped, and carried by others in the church family.

As we’ve intentionally spent time with each other, and as people have humbled themselves, slowed down, and allowed others to walk alongside them — it’s been incredibly encouraging to see them desiring to keep walking faithfully with God. As we all talked, it wasn’t hard to recognize the dynamics that have been at play recently, both personally and collectively. The Spirit is continuing to be faithful to help us recognize areas where adjustments are needed in how we love one another, care for one another, and speak to one another as a church family. 

There is a shared sense among us that something is shifting in our mindset as a church — a growing recognition of how much we truly need each other, and what it actually means to be faithful in one another’s lives. Faithful not only in belief, but in standing together. Faithful in friendship. Faithful in the work and mission God has given us together right now.

So much of that faithfulness revolves around how we interact with each other within God’s family — and, from there, how we interact with people in our community. And it doesn’t just happen automatically. We have to open our eyes to recognize what God and His Spirit are trying to show us — where we need to depend on others, where we need to help others, and where we need to make small but meaningful adjustments. As we intentionally spend time hearing from God and talking with Him, we’re also called to intentionally move toward one another.

There’s a subtle belief that says, “I’ll figure this out on my own”, or “I don’t want to bother anyone else”. But recognize that that’s the flesh! That belief doesn’t align with the way God has structured His family. In the body of Christ, dependence isn’t weakness — it’s design.

There are so many things working against this way of living — our own natural habits and ways of thinking, the noise and pressure of the world around us, and ultimately Satan’s strategy to divide, isolate, and make us more independent from one another. We have to fight that battle by standing alongside others — living life with people who are submitting themselves to truth and striving to walk faithfully with God’s Spirit.

Obviously that doesn’t mean constant agreement or perfectly smooth relationships. It means shared direction. It means allowing others to speak into your life and being willing to do the same for them. It means recognizing that God often uses people — regular, imperfect people — to bring encouragement, correction, clarity, and grace. Community is the primary place where God’s life is actually experienced, not just talked about.

It’s been a messy & real life process for us as a church family, and it feels like we’re starting to take the right steps into God’s purpose for our lives here. The years behind us — marked by challenge and struggle, failure and success, growth and learning — have brought us to a place where we’re recognizing our need for one another … where we’re growing in our commitment to truly share life together, allowing God’s Spirit to guide us into deeper friendships and faithfulness.

We’re so grateful for faithful people who are choosing relationship over isolation. These kinds of conversations don’t produce immediate answers, but they do produce something just as valuable: a reminder that we’re not meant to walk alone, and that God’s life is fully expressed when we walk together.

We want to keep leaning into this reality — not as an ideal, but as a daily practice. To choose connection. To choose shared life. And to trust that as we do, God will continue forming something amazing in and among us.

Thanks for walking this journey with us.

Keep Praying

Pray that we would all grow in faithfulness within God’s family in our marriages, parenting, and friendships.

Pray that God’s Spirit would give clear direction and courage to move more intentionally towards others within our community … some distant believers, some curious & confused unbelievers , and some motivated religious antagonists.

Pray that we, the faithful in the church, would sacrificially give our lives to help people around us.