I never officially introduced my team to you guys, and now our time as a team is coming to an end in the next week. The six of us have been on a team since December when we did team changes in South Africa. Meet Kendell, Steph, Morgan, Claire, and Bre. 

When we are placed on a new team of people on the race, we are asked to come up with a team name. Our team bounced around several ideas. At one point we even were thinking something along the lines of something off the Lion King lol. After a while of brainstorming, somebody said what about Rooted? We all just kind of looked around the room at each other, and I think somehow we just knew that was it. Rooted. It just sounded right.

While in South Africa, we would visit this Christian Coffee Shop called First Light. One day while in the shop, one of our teammates found this handmade necklace that they were selling in the shop. The necklace is in the shape of Africa with a large tree imprinted on it with the roots going down at the bottom of the continent. We thought how appropriate for our team name! Of course we all bought one, and it has become our team necklace. 

After arriving to Lesotho, we really begin to see more meaning behind it, and it begin to make even more sense why the Lord had given us this name. One morning, a few of us went to the school to do a devotion with the kids and picked Ephesians 3:17-19 to teach them. The next week Kendell and I were trying to decided what to preach on that Sunday, and the Lord brought up again Ephesians 3:17-19. That week our team decided to do a bible study for one of our team times with these same verses. It was clear that these verses went along with our team name. 

Ephesians 3:17-19

“So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”

Paul had such an incredible realization of what it mean to understand God’s love that he couldn’t help but respond by letting the Lord work through him to reach others. He wanted others to understand just how much God loved them and how that love could radically change their lives for the better and bring glory to God and the kingdom.

We wanted that same thing for our team. To be a team that is fully rooted in the love of Christ. To be a team that doesn’t just know about that love but to really know it in our hearts and want to share that with others. 

God wants us to experience the abundance of his love. He wants us to be rooted in his perfect love. To pull up any of those roots that are not established in his love. To pull up any of those roots that are lies about God’s love. He wants us to understand that His love is so deep, and he wants us to understand that that love goes so far beyond just knowledge. Once we understand and experience that love, like it says in verse 20, he is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or imagine by his power at work within us. 

As a team, I think this is something we have all been working on. The Lord has been teaching each of us how to be more and more established in His love. He has been teaching each of us what lies need to be uprooted to replace with the truth of His love. He has been teaching us what it means to be rooted in the love of Christ and rooted in His truth. 

I asked my teammates to share their answer to their question: What has the Lord been teaching you about what it means to be Rooted in His love on team Rooted?

Kendell Christopherson: “Abba has shown me so much about his love in community on team rooted. From the importance of vulnerability, to simply evaluating how to be loved. The Lord places people around us to be the overflow of his love, but we also have to step in.”

Morgan Corrigan: “Rooted is a desire to have God be my rock, my refugee, my sustainer, my definer. While on this team I have gone through a refinement and purifying to make this true and the ability to walk in this freedom. His love is enough and I have learned more of this and probably relearn this in every circumstance in my life.”

Bre Smith: “I’ve learned a lot about being rooted in Jesus in this season through inner healing and community. God has been healing a lot in my life and heart and has shown me His great love through it all. I’ve also seen his love displayed in this through community on Rooted!”

Steph Tancous: “Team rooted to me has been about celebrating victories in one another’s lives. The weeding out (“uprooting”) of lies and unhealthy patterns. The planting of new roots that come from the truth & freedom we find as we walk with Christ. These roots can help us withstand the droughts & storms that life often brings.”

We have been learning so much on this journey together about being rooted in the love of Christ, and we pray that we will always continue to pursue that even as our time as a team comes to an end. 

Thanks team Rooted for a season of pulling up roots and replanting new ones all while learning to be rooted in the love of Christ always.