Jesus Christ the Lord

We humans are social beings. We need fellowship and meaningful connection with one another and with God. For this reason, God calls us to unite ourselves to Christ and one another in love in His Church.
“Ecclesia” (ek-klesia), the Greek word for Church, means “called forth.” We are called forth for communion with God and with one another in God. “God is agape” (1 John 4:8, 16) and “agape is of God” (1 John 4:7). We have been called forth to love one another and all others with God’s agape love.” This is not the way of the world.
We live in a fake world in which real love is rare. It was not so in the beginning, but it has been so ever since the first sin…the first of many…and the primordial Fall from grace. Through sin, humanity lost it’s original fellowship with God. That’s the sad truth. It’s also true that God did not give up on us. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). While always respecting our freedom, the “Hound of Heaven” has pursued us like a hound dog, to draw us back into close relationship with Him, into the fellowship of His love which is life. Throughout history, people have turned their hearts to Him and received life.
Today, unfortunately many people are choosing to turn away from Christ. That seems to be the trend of our society. To survive in such times, Christians must come together and support each other in our faith. As a recent saint of the Church, St. Paisios the Athonite said, “Even more so in our days, with the situation we live in, it is important for spiritual people to communicate with each other, to understand each other.” To enable this interpersonal communication and mutual understanding is the reason for Agape Circle.
When asked which is the great commandment in the law of God, the Lord Jesus Christ said: “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Matthew 22:36-40).
Agape Circle helps us remember Christ’s love for us and His call to us to love. We reflect on the Scriptures together and apply what we read to our lives. We connect with one another. We remember that the Lord has work to be done in this world, and He invites us to join Him in it. He calls us to be His co-workers in the holy work of real, life-giving love in our fallen, death-bound world.
In Agape Circle meetings we engage in “DiaLogos,” a form of dialogue by which we practice a few of the skills of love, particularly the skill of deep listening . . . to God, to ourselves and to one another.

DiaLogos means “through the Logos (Word).” By “logos” here we mean the words of Scripture, our own personal words, and the living Word of God Who is Jesus Christ. He said that “where two or three are gathered in my Name, I am there in their midst” (Matthew 18:20). A primary aim of DiaLogos is to connect with one another through Christ and to connect with Christ through one another.
Agape Circle thus provides a face-to-face, dialogical way of participating in the holy communion with God that we experience spiritually and sacramentally in all the sacred mysteries of the Church, especially in the Divine Liturgy.
Our meetings are part of what some have termed “the liturgy after the Liturgy.” In the Divine Liturgy we collectively and directly encounter God, face to face. In Agape Circle, we encounter each other face to face. Meeting across from each other and listening to each other in Agape Circle we learn to discern the image of God in one another. This is practice for detecting and loving the same Divine image in all other people. In this way, Agape Circle enables us to extend the agape love of Christ into the world.