How God Shapes Love Through the Stories of Community

by Joe Gatlin and Analí Gatlin Looper

The open seat on the bench is inviting. An elephant deep in thought—with a parrot perched on its tusk—never fails to draw smiles. It is also BIG.

The sculpture naturally raises questions.

What is the elephant thinking about? (If you haven’t guessed, it’s a playful takeoff on Rodin’s famous The Thinker.)

Why is a parrot sitting on its tusk?

And, inevitably, exactly how many elephants can sit on a park bench in Waco?

Lately I’ve found myself asking another question.

What could this whimsical sculpture possibly have to do with The Shape of Love, Nurturing Communities Network’s gathering this September at Camp Loucon?

Quite a bit, as it turns out.

“The Wise Elephant” is the most photographed of the twenty-eight zoo sculptures that stretch along a mile of Waco’s Riverwalk. Nearly every morning I park our dark gray Kia Soul—which could almost be mistaken for the elephant itself—at its foot and head out for my four-mile walk. On the return I know I’m almost back to the car when I see the elephant’s head towering above the walkers, runners, strollers, and bicycles.

Somewhere along those walks, the elephant and its unlikely companion began speaking to me—not literally, of course, but about community, the Holy Spirit, and the changing shape of love.

Those thoughts came into focus as I listened to a story shared during worship at Hope Fellowship, the Christian community my family has called home for many years. Our daughter Analí was reflecting on the ways Jesus had led her over the past two decades. As I listened, I realized I wasn’t simply hearing the story of one person’s vocation. I was watching the shape of love unfold through a community learning to discern together.

Analí’s Story as Told to Hope Fellowship

What follows is adapted from Analí's reflections shared during worship at Hope Fellowship.

Analí and Joel Looper. Photos courtesy of the author

This Sunday’s theme is “Walking with Jesus as citizens of God’s kingdom.” Many of you already know parts of this story because, in many ways, it is Hope Fellowship’s story as much as it is mine.

When I was seventeen, my parents and I traveled by bus from Waco to Guatemala for the summer. While we were there, we also visited Valle Nuevo, a rural community in El Salvador founded by families who returned home after the civil war. Over the past thirty-four years, Valle Nuevo has become deeply connected with Shalom Mission Communities—an association of four Christian communities in the United States that has accompanied the community in friendship and mutual encouragement.

That first visit—and many that followed—left a lasting mark on me. Some memories were immediate (there’s a story involving a bat that I’ll save for another time). Others took years to take root. Looking back now, I realize Valle Nuevo became the quiet chorus beneath the next decade of my life.

After graduating from Baylor in 2007, I wasn’t sure what came next. The apprenticeship program at Reba Place Fellowship, one of the Shalom Mission Communities near Chicago, seemed like the right next step. I moved into the Clearing household and lived there for the next two years.

During that time I worked with Good News Partners, a neighborhood housing ministry in Rogers Park that my parents had helped establish years earlier. I began as a bookkeeper and eventually became assistant director of New Life, a transitional housing program. I loved life at Reba. Young adults lived close together. We worshiped together, shared life together, and older members invested deeply in mentoring us. My own faith took root in new ways.

Yet throughout those years I kept feeling drawn back to Waco.

I often thought about friends in Valle Nuevo who had chosen, at great personal sacrifice, to stay in or return to their own community because they believed God had called them to invest there. Their example stayed with me.

When I returned home for the wedding of two longtime Hope Fellowship members, JB and Bethany, I had a strong sense that this was where I belonged. Not long afterward, John—another longtime member of Hope Fellowship who had helped shape my life since childhood—helped me find a position with Habitat for Humanity.

None of these decisions followed a carefully designed plan. Love was taking shape one faithful step at a time, often through relationships and communities that quietly helped me discern the next step.

Back at Hope Fellowship, I became fully involved in the life of the community again and began mentoring one of our high school students.

She was bright and gifted, but because of her immigration status she couldn’t get a driver’s license or a job. As graduation approached, she wasn’t sure whether pursuing higher education even made sense.

Her situation deeply affected me.

I knew I wanted to work with immigrants because I believed the gospel proclaims that God welcomes the stranger. In God’s kingdom there are no borders. I began thinking about graduate school. A friend—a former Hope Fellowship member and one of my college professors—suggested something I had never seriously considered.

“What about law school?”

I was skeptical.

Still, I quietly spent the next week researching immigration law and law schools. I discovered that Waco had no nonprofit immigration legal services. By the end of that week I surprised even myself by telling my parents and my sister that I thought God might be calling me to attend law school and eventually open a nonprofit immigration law office in Waco.

To my surprise—and slight horror—they immediately embraced the idea.

Then I brought it to my Hope Fellowship discernment group.

They agreed.

For me, that affirmation mattered. The calling didn’t belong only to me. It became something my community recognized with me.

Law school turned out to be harder than I expected.

I had to confront my own untreated anxiety while living in a culture that often measured success by income and prestige. More than once I wondered whether I should quit.

But a great many people were rooting for me.

For a season I even sat in the back during worship, studying between classes. Looking back, I realize Hope Fellowship was quietly keeping me grounded at precisely the time law school was trying to pull my imagination in another direction. Week after week, you reminded me that my calling was not simply to become a lawyer, but to follow Jesus.

After graduating from Baylor Law in 2014, I quickly discovered I still knew almost nothing about immigration law.

I accepted a position with American Gateways in Austin and spent the next several years commuting. During the week I lived with a young Mennonite couple in Austin. On weekends I came home—to Hope Fellowship, to my beau Joel, and to the community that had discerned this calling with me from the beginning.

The commute was difficult, but in 2017 American Gateways gave me permission to open a Waco office. Soon afterward, Luz—who had grown up at Hope Fellowship and now serves as a Department of Justice Accredited Representative—joined me. What a joy it has been to work alongside her while continuing to worship together as members of the same community.

As I look back now, I often think that my law degree and the work I now do don’t really belong to me.

They belong to you.

They belong to this community.

Hope Fellowship celebrates a baptism at Easter

My colleagues know there is something unusual about Hope Fellowship. They know this work grew out of a people who have tried, however imperfectly, to imagine God’s kingdom together. They know my life has also been shaped by Shalom Mission Communities and by friends in Valle Nuevo, whose witness continues to remind me that love often means choosing to remain, to serve, and to invest in a particular place.

When I feel overwhelmed by the injustice and tremendous need in our world, I remember that establishing perfect justice is not ultimately my responsibility. As citizens of God’s kingdom, we have the joy of walking together, bearing witness together, and proclaiming the good news that God has made room for all of us.

Analí ended her story there.

The shape of love is always a story; it is never static.

Every act of love takes on a unique shape as the Holy Spirit gives discernment.

“Hey,” the Spirit says, “here is the way of Jesus—the way of love, justice, service, sacrifice, suffering...and joy. Here, in this particular moment, this is what faithfulness looks like.”

No two stories are exactly alike.

No two communities will embody love in precisely the same way.

Love takes one shape in a village of returned refugees in El Salvador. Another in an intentional Christian community in Chicago. Another in a neighborhood fellowship in Waco. Still another in an immigration law office. The forms are different, but the Spirit is the same, patiently teaching us to recognize the way of Jesus.

So what about that whimsical sculpture on Waco’s Riverwalk?

The elephant is still sitting on the bench.

The parrot is still perched on its tusk.

But now I notice something I had overlooked before.

If you look closely, the elephant’s left eye is open just a slit, fixed on the little bird.

The thinker has become a listener.

The parrot interrupts the elephant’s thoughts with a couple of questions. “What is the shape of love? Where is the Spirit taking us?”

“The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8)

At Camp Loucon in September, we'll listen together for where the Spirit is taking us. We’ll hear stories and testimonies of God’s work, and blessings in our communities.

I hope you’ll join us as the shape of love in Jesus is fleshed out among us.

Joe Gatlin and his wife Nancy are founding members of Hope Fellowship in Waco, Texas. Joe serves on the Steering Committee of Nurturing Communities Network.

Analí Gatlin Looper and her husband Joel live with their two daughters in the Hope Fellowship neighborhood. Analí serves as Co-Legal Director of American Gateways’ Waco office.