Is Passing

God is love—and not just loving, but love itself: so deeply connected that God is described as three-in-one. Made in that image, we are designed not for isolation but for interdependence. We need each other.
The light God gives helps us find one another, revealing truth not just to us, but for us—so that we can live lives shaped by grace, trust, and unconditional love.

Illume's "...is Passing" series-of-series invites you to look at familiar things through this light: the light of God’s deeply connected, always-reaching love.

“Dear friends, I am not writing you a new command but an old one, which you have had since the beginning. This old command is the message you have heard. Yet I am writing you a new command; it’s truth is seen in him and in you, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining.” (1 John 2:7-8)

Experiencing something in the dark can be radically different from experiencing that very same thing in the light. This is true whether you’re walking through an unfamiliar room or you’re trying navigate the big, complicated topics of life. The difference between experiencing things in darkness and light is the reason there are so many things that seem good, but then can be or (almost inevitably) are used in harmful ways. The “…is Passing” series-of-series explores why and how this happens. Each series reframes an important concept, such as gender or politeness or rightness, by moving the concept from being a law-oriented, control-based idea to being one focused on freedom and grace.

Each series uses the structure of 1 John 2:8 (the bolded words above) to explore this, asking:

1. What does this seem like in darkness?
2. In what ways is that version of it passing? 
3. What does this become in the true light? 
4. Where can we see that already shining?