Community Life

Church is... Friendship... Family... Community

True community life is more than the casual friendship that develops as we say hello and goodbye in the church parking lot.  True community functions much like family.  We may not always agree.  We may sometimes say and do things that irritate and even hurt each other. But love always wins.  Our friends may come and go, but family is forever.

Under the Tamarind tree where Brethren first worshiped together in Nigeria you'll find a plaque that reads:

From now on you are no longer foreigners and outsiders but citizens together with God’s people and members of God’s family. You are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Christ Jesus himself is the cornerstone. In him all the parts of the building fit together and grow into a holy temple in the Lord. Through him you, also, are being built in the Spirit together with others into a (people) where God lives (Ephesians 2:19-22).

Those who gathered under the Tamarind tree that morning were from different tribes, traditions, customs, and cultures.  But they learned to speak the same language, the language of love.  Our hearts break when we receive news of what is happening to our brothers and sisters in Nigeria, because we are family, the family of God.

In his blog, SimpleChurchJournal.com, Roger Thoman offers six guidelines for developing the kind of community that is possible within the family of God: 

1. Vulnerability and authenticity. Creating community that is safe and that reflects God’s own love does not just happen. Someone has to risk being vulnerable and saying, “This is who I really am.” We are spiritual and human, both. Our humanness is shared in common with all. Sharing our humanness does not make us weak—it makes us close to other humans. It allows us to fulfill the biblical command to “accept one another as Christ has accepted you.” Someone has to be deliberate about taking the risk to take the masks off. In this environment of acceptance, others will do the same and true community will develop.

2. Make room for people to share. There needs to be times during meals, gatherings, get-togethers where people have space to share their lives. This may seem obvious, but it’s amazing how quickly we can fill our times together with talk about everything except ourselves. We often wait to be invited before we will share our lives with others. Someone has to ask the real questions!

3. Someone has to model what it means to console others. Christians tend to fix and advise when others have needs. This can be helpful, but very often this is an attempt to do the job of the Holy Spirit. Many times, God is very good at leading Christians into the truth they need, what He asks of us is that we learn to console one another: weep with those who weep. This is our job. This is how we stand by one another in support and closeness. 

4. Get involved in the threads of each other’s lives. We need to know, really, what is happening with one on a daily and weekly basis. What are the circumstances, issues, problems, and needs that are being wrestled with. There are many ways to communicate and we need to use them all: gatherings, prayer requests, phone, email, one-on-one get-togethers. Relationships don’t just happen. They are built one brick at a time.

5. Plan on conflict. Good relationships are built on the inevitability of conflicts that are faced and resolved to the point where the relationship is even stronger. Relationships are made to grow us. We must deal with the real issues of hurt, pride, anger, communication, and forgiveness. This is the stuff of relationship. To not plan for this is to settle for superficial relationships that blow away at the first hint of strain.

6. Be willing to let go. Not all relationships are going to continue to be close, even when they are good. We want to have great community. We will have great community. But it will sometimes be time to re-arrange. God does this. We don’t become so attached to community that it becomes our god. Community does not meet all our needs, God does. Community is meant to grow us up. Sometimes we have to let go of it being the “end all” that we thought it would be.

I love community. I love community life. I am called to be a builder of community life. Being part of a transformational family is, I believe, at the heart and soul of what it means to “be” the church.

But… it’s messy, difficult, demanding, sometimes wearisome and frustrating… as well as wonderful, fulfilling, and life-changing. It requires constant attention. As Scott Peck says:

A group of people never become a community and stay a community. They continually fall out of community, back into chaos or pseudocommunity. What character-izes a healthy, ongoing, sustained community is the rapidity with which it is able to say, "Hey, we've lost it. We need to go back and work on ourselves.