The Need for Community
*Below are some notes I took while reading through part of Kenneth Boa’s Conformed to His Image. Some lines are direct quotes, others are my own thoughts – my college professors would hate to see them all mixed up like this – but consider yourself warned.
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God created us as relational beings; and because of this we thrive best in community. Community is the hotbed of spiritual growth and renewal, yet it is a fragile and vulnerable space for the Evil One to invade and undermine.
In the Western world, we are seeing an attack on community (not just spiritual community) on just about every level. There is a fierce pursuit of autonomy, self-actualization, privatization, avoidance of accountability, and a nuanced form of narcissism called “self-esteem.” Read up on this in the foundational book Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam. In addition, we as Americans have a heritage of distrusting institutions, traditions and especially authority.
This blog post is not about wishing for days gone by, but about recapturing the biblical vision of covenantal community.
Certain Christians groups emphasize either the individual, or the corporate. Evangelicals really push their attention to the individual’s justification of self before God. Other groups accent social justice and relevance in culture. The dangers of irrelevant privatization on one side or mere social ethics on the other are the pits on both sides of the path. Scripture seems to find a balance by affirming the good news of kingdom living in the present tense. The spiritual life is both personal and social; both dependent on God and active in the world.
God IS Community
Scripture clearly shows God as a relational being. Even before the creation of the world God is in a pure, loving community of three (Father, Word, Spirit). Since God made us in his likeness, we have been created for community with him and with one another. As we make the choice to enter into that original divine relationship, we become members of a new community that is called to reflect the Godhead in its corporate unity. [youversion]John 17:22-26[/youversion] In essence, our Lord tells us, “If you love me, you will love the people I love.”
The private/corporate polarities mentioned above are reflected on well in one of my favorite books on the topic, Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Life Together:
“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and the community…You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; You are never alone, even in death…If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you.”
[youversion]Luke 6:12-19[/youversion] is an excellent text on moving from Solitude to Community to Ministry. Jesus spent the night in solitude with God, in the morning he formed a community by inviting his disciples to follow him, then in the afternoon Jesus ministered with his disciples to the physical and spiritual needs of the crowds. This is a path we can follow too. Community is the bridge that connects solitude (intimacy with God) with ministry to the world.
True community is not a collection of lonely or isolated individuals but a dynamic interaction of people who know they are accepted in Christ. God does not call us to be” Christians at large” or “a colony of hermits” but a vital organism of others-centered people of which Christ is the head. True solitude and true community enrich each other through their creative interplay where the horizontal meets the vertical.
The corporate life of the body of Christ is not optional. Its never easy, but we are impoverished without it. Among other things, it provides:
- relational enrichment and commitment
- trust, love, and acceptance
- mutual submission out of reverence for Christ
- physical, psychological and spiritual healing
- nourishment from the common work of listening to God’s voice together in Scripture, prayer, and life.
Challenges to Community
The Church has always had its manipulators, controllers, and faction builders. Even worse, few of these people even realize the the corporate damage they inflict, and usually paint a veneer of concern for the best interests of the group. Just look at the church in Corinth.
In [youversion]Phil 2:3,4[/youversion], Paul recommends “Do nothing out of selfish or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.” Learning to please only Christ, the irony is that we can then find the right position to truly meet the needs of others.
The fundamental threat to community is self-centeredness, the vital builder of community is others-centeredness rooted in Christ-centeredness.
Hell is self-centered and isolational; heaven is others-centered and relational. Having a corporate spirituality is costly because it asks us to go against the grain of our fallen instincts for privatization and personal control. But Scripture reminds us that joy is only experienced in full when it is shared, and atrophies when it is hoarded. Thomas Merton has said plainly, “We are not at peace with each other because we are not at peace with ourselves. And we are not at peace with ourselves because we are not at peace with God.”
The Key to Creating Community
Surrender and self-denial in Christ is the KEY to biblical community. It is in this context we can read Augustine’s profound prayer, “Lord, your best servants are those who wish to shape their life on your answers rather than shape your answers on their wishes.”
The Church does not exist for the individual – it is inappropriate to leave a church when it no longer “feeds you.” Maybe its a calling from God to bring some of your own spiritual food to the potluck!
You cannot wait for the perfect group of people to arrive to “start your church” – you must surrender your ideal of community to allow the one before you to thrive.
So you think you really want a taste of this divine community?
True community in Christ is not created by attempts to “make it happen;” instead, it is a by-product of others-centeredness – which comes from losing our life to seek Jesus. [youversion]Matt 16:25[/youversion] Death is the only way to resurrection. Conversion to Christ and to the cross should in turn lead to conversion to community. Everything you do alone in the Lord is useless without it. [youversion]1 Cor 13:1[/youversion]
True solitude is the home of the person, false solitude the refuge of the individualist. The person is constituted by a uniquely subsisting capacity to love – by a radical ability to care for all beings made by God and loved by Him. Such a capacity is destroyed by the loss of perspective. Without a certain element of solitude there can be no compassion because when a man is lost in the wheels of a social machine he is no longer aware of human needs as a matter of personal responsibility. One can escape from men by plunging into the midst of a crowd.
Tim C, 
Michael Coghlin 1:00 pm on December 15, 2009 Permalink
Hey Mark,
I just started receiving the House 2 House newsletters and noticed a “Mark Willis” as one of the contributors. Combining my sharp wit with the brute force of Google (and your well-laid-out blog) I put two-and-two together to realize, “I know this guy! I sat in class with him! Wow…” I’ve recently become involved with a network of house churches in Calgary, AB.
So, though I’m not responding to your post, I am giving you a hearty “hello, eh?” from chilly Canada. I look forward to reading more of what you’ve written.
Grace and Peace,
Michael
Mark 2:43 pm on December 15, 2009 Permalink
How exciting man! Praise God for what he’s up to in Calgary. I’ve actually visited Calgary (and Medicine Hat) a long time ago and loved it while I was there. Hope to keep in touch with ya – do you have a blog or anything?