comm U nity

I don’t think it’s possible to fully appreciate community until you’ve been without it for a season, have had the privilege of sharing it with a small group of people for many years, or both. I think we tend to think of community in terms of simply doing things with a large group of friends and acquaintances and as a result, we tend to settle for this kind of shallow community – if it can be called that – largely because our definition of community falls far short.

I’ve spent some time recently thinking about what exactly it was that led me to give my life to Christ almost six years ago at an October retreat. I had always said that it was the first time I had heard the Gospel presented clearly, and while that’s mostly true, there’s probably more to it than that.

Namely, it’s the first time I’d seen a Christian community I wanted to be a part of and thus probably the first time I gave the Gospel a chance.

Because let’s face it, when you’re an 18 year-old kid that’s never seen the truths of the Gospel lived out in community, the Good News just seems like an ancient tradition lacking any relevance, meaning, or power.

But all in the same weekend I understood the claims of Christ for the first time and I saw the life and kind of relationships that could only be possible through a relationship with God.

In that moment, did I completely understand that I was an adopted son of God? Did I know what the word “propitiation” meant? Or was I able to describe the Trinity?

In a word, no. (Still can’t explain the Trinity!)

But I knew that Jesus is God, that He died and was resurrected so that I might be forgiven and have a relationship with Him, and that my life was to be spent trying to glorify Him (this last part was especially mind-altering and life-changing for me).

And I saw the life of Jesus being lived out in my peers that weekend as we played football, people onstage sang, and we talked about life as men and as college students.

I recently sat around a table with a group of friends I had met that year and I can’t even begin to explain what a blessing it is to still have those people beside me now. People that have been around the world with me, have had fun with me, have been mad at me, and have made me into the person that I am today.

This has probably been happening for a long time, but lately I have noticed more and more how much the people God has placed in my life have been speaking encouragement and wisdom into my life and have affirmed the talents, gifts, and character traits that they’ve seen in me. During a season where I’ve had the chance to take a (rather large) step back from things and re-evaluate what direction my life and ministry is heading, people have gone out of their way to encourage me in the different ways they’ve seen God working in and through me.

Fairly recently, an author in the public eye made headlines when she declared that she was still a “follower of Christ” (as they like to be called) but that she was removing herself from the Church and the term “Christian.”

While I won’t get in to how ridiculous this is, let me assert that it’s also something else that most people are failing to consider…

Selfish.

The concept of the Church isn’t about “what I can get from the Church.” That’s an incredibly distorted way of looking at it.

When I was in college, I ran into a freshman who said he had gone to a certain Christian organization’s weekly meeting but that he hadn’t returned and wasn’t interested in finding any other ministry or church because “he ‘knew’ he was more mature” than everyone else there.

While his “maturity” is perhaps in question, he clearly had the wrong mindset about community.

What I’m trying to say is that we need to both receive and give community.

To isolate ourselves from community isn’t just harmful to us as individuals but it’s harmful to the community that you could be a part of.

That community needs your encouragement, your gifts, and your speaking into others’ lives words of affirmation and hope, because there’s a lot at stake.

For me as an 18 year-old kid, my eternal well-being was at stake. And as I continue in my walk as a Christian, my relationship with God, my ministry, and the talents and gifts I decide to pursue are still very much at stake. -CK

Let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another – and all the more as you see the Day approaching. Hebrews 10:24-25