How does a church become a community? How does a community become a
family? These questions have challenged many pastors and church leaders.
I don't pretend to know a better or more all encompassing answer than
any others. (This should decrease your confidence in me as a leader!)
However, I do know that God's Word is very clear that Christians are
expected to live in community together, to function as a spiritual
family. God chose this purpose for his people intentionally. I also
know that God is a gracious Father, a generous King always willing to
provide what his people need. Based on God's vision for the church and
his gracious character, I do have confidence that we will be given all
that we need to build our church into a community, a spiritual family,
envisioned by his Word and sustained by his power. Here are a few
thoughts we should have in mind as we begin this journey:
1.
Biblical Community is a gift and need, not a demand. Salvation would be
endlessly glorious without a company of fellow believers. The gift of a
spiritual family should produce gratefulness. Seeing the New Testament
picture of community should make us grateful, hopeful, humble, and
eager, not demanding, reproachful, and resentful, whatever our current
experience of community is. We don't want to be like the little child
who complains that his Christmas gift isn't big enough.
2.
Biblical community should be....Biblical. Our relationships together
should reflect the specific calls to community that we see in God's
Word. Like all Biblical commands, the community commands and patters
of the Scriptures will never be fulfilled perfectly, but this does not
allow us to start with a different paradigm.
3. Community should
embrace all of life. Our community should not spurn practical care or
denigrate a normal meal together, nor should we resist theological
discussions or accountability. Our goal is not to isolate a certain
portion of our life and call it "Biblical Community". Rather we are
asking how we can eat and drink and do whatever we do for the glory of
God....together.
This worth expanding upon.
A life should
include a healthy diet, rest, and exercise. We don't feast on medicine,
and we don't stay in bed 24/7. Steak isn't usually good for an
afternoon snack, and an apple alone isn't a balanced diet. Our
spiritual life together should be the same. Biblical community should
include growing in theology, simple encouragements, practical care for
each other, the warnings of accountability, serving together, praying
and worshiping together, joyful enjoyment of God's blessings in all of
life, and earnest exhortations to believe the good news. All of these
together constitute healthy spiritual life and we should not assume that
some are unnecessary.
4. Community, like family, should include
infants and grandparents. A biblical community should find a way for
the spiritually mature and the spiritual newborns to enjoy each others'
company. The mature should not feel that they have to hide their
experience in the faith or their theological depth, the infants should
not feel that they are disqualified from genuine spiritual fellowship.
5.
Community requires hard work. We must not assume that we drift toward
Biblical community, since we don't drift toward anything good in this
fallen world. The New Testament describes normal Christian growth as a
battle between the flesh and the Spirit. The desire to be selfish must
be overcome by the desire to serve. The desire to be stingy must be
overcome by the desire to be generous. Bitterness must be overcome by
forgiveness, conflict by peace, deceit by honesty, self-righteousness by
humility. The point is, honoring God in his call to community
requires sowing to the Spirit.
6. Community is. Dietrich
Bonhoeffer makes this point brilliantly in his little book "Life
Together." Without neglecting the command to "build" community--we have
to start by recognizing that through our union with Jesus Christ we have
already been decisively built together as a community in Him. Our job
is to function in that union, not create something out of nothing. This
should build our faith for the future of our experience of community
and our love for those Christians that are around us, since we share the
same Savior and derive our spiritual life from the same Spirit.
That's
all for now. Our church will be announcing our first two small groups
on November 3rd. Our first small group meetings will be the evening of
November 17th. That night the gathering will be a whole family get
together, complete with dinner and fun. Can't wait to continue the
journey of building community together at Redemption Hill Church.
*Originally posted at www.rhchurch.com
