I have realized that there is a buzzword right now in charismatic Christianity that is getting to the point of being cliché. That word is “Community.” Some even like to throw the word “Koinonia” around, which is the Greek word for “Fellowship.” I think that it is a great idea, because Christians need community. Without it, the person dies in isolation. Much like a baby who is not touched, cuddled or loved enough, a person will whither without ample connection. Today I want you to not settle for community, instead seek a life giving community.
The question is…
How do we create a sense of community?
I have worked with Life Groups at multiple places, I have also been a part of many myself. I have noticed the recent push for this, because the church on a whole struggles with the ability to meet individual needs… especially larger churches. For some reason, it seems that a small number of people actually take advantage of these groups. Whether it is fear of intimacy, inability/lack of desire to make time, or needs not being met, it seems that people are not engaging at the rate that churches desire. That, and often times groups are demanded to multiply, much like a business model. But I often feel that community is pushed but not properly taught, much like being told to build a bookshelf without having instructions.
The two components to community that I see are LOVE and FRIENDSHIP.
Love: I can remember getting in a discussion with people and I asked them to define love. They rattled off 1 Corinthians 13, which I am sure you can train a parrot to regurgitate with the same amount of zest. I cut the person off because I knew the person and they did not show the fruit of 1 Corinthians 13 (more on that later). So let me give you the Webster’s Dictionary definition:
THE UNSELFISH LOYAL AND BENEVOLENT CONCERN FOR THE GOOD OF ANOTHER.
Does that change the way you view love? For me, it did. It motivated me to continue to live that way. Without getting into the different Greek forms of love, I want to say that this fits the definition of true love. IT IS A CHOICE, not a feeling. It is also reciprocal, so that means that two people have to make that choice. I am saying all this to say that we really need to have a healthy view on what love is and is not. Ultimately, if everyone had unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of everyone, we would live in a much better society. But life is not that way. That is why it is important that we embody this attribute.
One final thought on love is that not everyone can love properly. If someone is constantly taking from you, you should probably be careful with the time that you spend with them. If you look at your life as a tree, you want to make sure that people are not taking all of your fruit without helping you grow and be more fruitful. That is not love. We are taught to love our neighbors as ourselves, not love our neighbors more than ourselves.
Friendship: Somewhere along the line we were taught in life that everyone must be friends with everyone. That is so unrealistic. In fact, I just heard something to that effect at work yesterday. People who get together in their free time and do stuff that they enjoy doing together are friends. These people also have vested interests in the other person’s life. I am saying this because we have diminished the definition of “friends” to something that is more sterile and less defined. Friendship can get dirty because people’s lives are messy.
How does this relate to church? I have found that people have a tendency to think just because you go to church together, you must be friends. I have had this happen to me a few times, and it disturbs me. The truth is that we must have boundaries about who we say and do things with. We cannot be everything to everyone, it does not work!
I say this to prove a point. We are stewards of our friendships, so we only have so much that we can give adequately. I am quite honestly not very interested in NASCAR or hunting, so I would not have much in common with someone who talks about that constantly. That being said, it would not make sense for me to spend quite a bit of my free time hunting and watching NASCAR, because it would not be enjoyable and I would be wasting time that I could be using speaking life into another friendship that is neglected and could be a much more life-giving friendship.
That being said, when we think about community we need to wonder who we associate best with. We should always be open to new people, but if you have nothing in common with the person then the situation will work itself out. It is not being cliquey because not everyone meshes perfectly. It becomes a clique when you exclude people without good reason.
So how do we as leaders promote this mindset? Teach your people how to love properly. Second, think outside of the box and do activities that bring people together, and empower others create activities to bring others together. Yes, going to church is nice, going to Bible Studies/Cell Groups/Life Groups/Care Groups are good, but sometimes just getting away from the church setting to do an activity is helpful.
To close this post, I want to give you two things to work with. I mentioned 1 Corinthians 13, and I wanted to go back to that. This verse demonstrates what loving people look like. But if we do not cultivate the definition above in our lives, then we can never show the fruit. If you chose to live a life of love, insert your name in place of the word “Love” in 1 Cor 13:4-7. Are you patient, are you kind, do you not envy, etc?
The second point is to look at the people we spend our time with outside of mandatory functions. Do you like what you see? Do they build you up? Do you have activities that you enjoy doing together? These are things you have to ask yourself. In college, I realized that I needed to get people out of my social circles that were unhealthy.
To use an analogy, I understood why my favorite football team was abysmal. Being a Browns fan, I watch my team loyally but I have realized that they are so bad because they pick the wrong type of players for the wrong type of offense and defense that they were running. There were also guys that were distractions and self-centered that hurt team chemistry. In life, we need to find people that fit our systems, and people who do not become cancers to the chemistry of life.
I want to challenge you to not just settle for community, but instead seek loving friendships that lead to healthy community. It might take time, but the best things in life take time.
