On Community

Written by Darrin Patrick, February 6, 2009. Love this.

We are alone. We feel it. The universe is big and we are small. Sin has caused this "aloneness." We try to relate to others, but that doesn't seem to satisfy us. We get disappointed when others don't act like God (and meet all the needs that we demand they meet) or when others don't treat us like God (with the accompanying worship and praise that is due us). The truth is that we don't get the community thing. We like the word. We revel in the concept. Community sounds really good. But it seems to elude us. We need a new grid that is not centered on our felt need for "community."

Community began in eternity past. God who has always existed has always existed in community: Father, Son and Spirit. The Godhead models what community is: equality accompanied with submission. Being unified along with being different. God is the ground and starting place for community.

Community is experiencing Christ through one another.

Community is knowing and being known, serving and being served, celebrating and being celebrated. Community is hanging out with Christian friends and laughing about stupid things. Community is gradually opening up our true selves to people and letting them see who we really are. Community is telling each other the truth in love.

Community is not just being "nice."

True community involves being in a bad mood and still being pleasant to others. Community means asking for help. To be in community means to be in need. To feel other peoples' pain, that's community. To think more about what others need, that's community. Community involves crying and looking foolish in front of others. To be in community means to be uncomfortable at times. Community involves risking our image. Community is not just eating together. Community is not seeing people at church. Community is not saying, "Fine" when asked how you are doing. To be in community involves using your phone a lot.

To experience community is to arrange one's life in such a way that fellow members of the church are seen not as a burden to deal with, but friends with which to do life.

Community is seeing church as a family to belong to, not a service to go to. Community involves simplifying one's lifestyle in order to welcome others.

Community means sacrificing time and money for those who need either. To listen more than you talk is community. To work out all conflicts and never hold grudges is community. Community is the way of Jesus who related to and lived with twelve very imperfect men when he could have accomplished his mission and lived his life without them. Jesus showed us how to do community by who he was and how he lived.

"the table" -- karis sermon

check out this great sermon (it's the text) from last Sunday at Karis. it's all about hospitality and how that builds community. here's the intro:

"Two hit sit-coms of the 80s and 90s were Cheers in the 80s and Seinfeld in the 90s. Cheers, if you know the show, featured guys like Sam and Woody and Norm and Cliff sitting around a bar sharing life, having laughs. “Where everybody knows your name” was the theme song and the tag line. Seinfeld, which I’m sure most of you know, showed Jerry and Elaine and Kramer and George hanging out together, mainly either in Jerry’s apartment or in the local diner. It was the “show about nothing,” but it was really about everything—all the mundane, yet quirky details of life as experienced by four friends living life together. Well, both shows express a longing we all have as human beings. It’s a deep longing for community. But, of course, to experience community, there has to be a certain degree of hospitality. You had to have the Cheers bar, of course, for them to hang out. Jerry had to open up his place to his friends. Without a common place to share and converse with one another, these friendships wouldn’t have happened.

Today, in our individualistic, consumeristic world, we’re isolated people. I think we can watch reruns of those shows and long for what these people have together and experience none of it at all. But community takes hospitality; it takes us opening up our homes and lives with one another. Today, we’re taking a break from our study of Luke for the second part of a brief, three-part series. Today we’re looking at the table—not the Lord’s Supper, but rather the “tables” in our home. We’ll discuss the sphere of ministry found in the home. We’ll take a look at biblical hospitality. We’ll look at the importance of hospitality, the definition of hospitality, the practice of hospitality, the impact of hospitality, and the hindrances to hospitality. Let us pray."

community & "brotherly affection"

Romans 12:9-21 is all about marks of the true christian, and one of my favorite parts of this is what this means for our community. verse 10 says to "love one another with brotherly affection." other translations say to "be devoted to one another in brotherly affection." this is huge. think about your relationships with your blood-related family members. even if our parents or siblings have radically different values and lifestyles from us, there is still a tie that stays, that is permanent. we say "well, they are still my dad," or "still my sister," because they will always be connected to us. we are supposed to love one another in this way. especially for Christians who share common values with us, we are to be as patient and doggedly devoted to one another as family members.

what else does this mean? verses 11 and 12 go on to say: "do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer." while it is easy to say that this seems to only be about our relationship with God, i think the reason they stand in the very middle of numerous directions about Christian relationships is important. we can't give up on our brothers and sisters around us, we must keep our hope and be patient in all the troubles that we meet. and be constantly praying for each other with a fervor that stems from love. this is how we meet the troubles and tribulations of those relationships around us--with patience and prayer. i think it is hard work to be deeply involved in peoples' lives, and it is a scary, scary thing. C.S. Lewis said that they only way to be sure not to have your heart broken is never to give it to anyone. we must give our hearts away though because this is where hope lies. the triumph of Christ becomes our hope, giving us a structure in which to share ourselves with each other--and a reason to do so.

to be truly known.

i was reading people magazine tonight, the article on heath ledger, and this quote really stuck out to me:

"heath has touched so many people on so many different levels during his short life but few had the pleasure of truly knowing him." --kim, his father.

i think we all have a desire to be truly known by someone, to be known inside and out and to have the opportunity to share our hearts. this is such a good thing and something that i do truly want, yet it is so hard, so scary to open ourselves up and expose our inner being. but i am finding that every time i do, every time that i put myself out there, i am so glad i did. i appreciate knowing that there is someone there who knows my thoughts, who knows me almost better than i know myself, and isn't afraid to call me out on something. i like growing in relationships and realizing that the reason for it is because we are knowing each other better, and doing this intentionally, knowing full well that it may be painful and it may hurt, but it will always contain a freedom.

i don't want to live my life closed off, afraid of what others will think or simply living in fear at the thought of letting others in. i want to desire to live in a true community, encouraging one another, bearing each others burdens, and sharing in the joy that we all experience. life is too short to be on this earth and keep yourself to yourself. we are made as image-bearers, so there will always be a part of us that is worth knowing. that other part is being shaped and conformed even as we open it up. if knowing someone truly and fully is really a pleasure, then i want to be known, not hold back.

know others, know him.

c.s. lewis was part of a really tight group of friends of about four guys. when one of the four, charles williams, died, lewis thought that he would get more of ronald (j.r.r. tolkien) because he would not be sharing ronald with charles. but he found that when he died, he actually was getting less of him because lewis himself could not bring out the things in him that charles and his humor could. he suddenly realized that it took a group of friends to know ronald; one is not enough to call everything out. it takes different people. it takes a family to know an individual. but what about Jesus? lewis says that you cannot know Jesus by yourself. we need solidarity with people of different "races" and theologies in Christ--specifically, different denominations, but also all those immediately around us. we need each other. we need to know each other or we won't know him. (keller sermon)

i really like this, because i think it is something that is so opposite to my way of thinking. i so often think that my way is right, that it is better than all others, and that anything else cannot be right. in the past couple years, my way of thinking about God and theology has changed so much and i think that so much of the time i see this as a great thing. but while this is a good thing, i elevate myself and the doctrines and beliefs that i share with others around me above anything that i had previously thought or subscribed to.

while i am entitled to think that i may be more "right" about something than someone else, that doesn't make me any better than someone or necessarily give me a higher authority on a certain topic. i think lewis' experience excites me because it opens up Jesus. it crushes the boundaries that have been set by different subsections of the body of Christ; it takes away the tendency to distance ourselves from others who may not see things exactly the way we do. and just as importantly, if we are truly knowing and searching others around us, then we are guaranteed to know Jesus in a light we otherwise may not have seen. we are all made in God's image and given different qualities and strengths for a reason; this is what makes up the body. we must be willing to know each other so that we can know him more truly.