Month: August 2007

Lessons in community

I’m sure I should be heading to bed – in fact I know I should already be asleep – but I’ve been putting off and putting off jotting down recent thoughts on community and community in the church for too long.
I’m in the middle of reading Building a Church of Small Groups by Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson and really enjoying it.
It’s taking me a while to read because I read 5-10 minutes at a time and then take a day or so to chew on it and think about it.
Something that really challenged me the other day and I hope it can be said about encounter one day – “At Willow Creek we can no longer imagine the local church apart from group life, because it is within our small groups that each person is grafted into the community of love that Christ died to redeem.”
I love the way this book is pieced together and organized.
Donahue and Robinson start out with Making the Case for Community.
They present it almost like a trial attorney (which Robinson once was before taking the lead role in community groups at Willow Creek).
They present the Theological evidence:

  • “Whatever community exists as a result of God’s creation, it is only a reflection of an eternal reality that is intrinsic to the being of God. Because God is eternally one, when He created in His image, He created oneness.” – Gilbert Bilezikian
  • The study of God and His person – prove beyond doubt that God’s nature is communal… God’s communal nature requires you to respond by building community – for yourself and for your church.
  • The theological case depends on three basic ideas. First, God exists in community… Second, God was incarnate in Christ Jesus, whose transformational relationships offer a model you cannot ignore. Third, Jesus dreams of oneness for all Christians, which is why you must move your church toward His vision.

They present the Sociological evidence:

  • “Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” – Dietrich Bonhoeffer
  • God gives us life so that we will seek out community with Him. “His purpose was for the nations to seek after God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him—though he is not far from any one of us.” – Acts 17:27
  • God exposes His emotions to us. (Exodus 32:9-10)
  • God engages us in His decisions. (Gen. 18:23-26)
  • God doesn’t simply wait for us to voice concerns. He engages with us so deeply that he steps in when we cannot even identify the problem. (Rom. 8:26-27)
  • God created us to house himself. (1 Cor. 6:19-20)
  • Just as God designed us to live in community with Him, He designed us to be communal with and to reproduce spiritual life in others.

    • This is something that really grabbed my attention:

  • “Our knowledge of the Bible has been shaped by the individualism of our culture, so that we teach the need for personal forgiveness — then stop. We neglect to preach the full doctrine of humanity, namely, that we are created to be dependent on God, to enjoy interdependence with God, and to experience communal interdependence within the church… We have missed out on the richness of communal living and do not know how to guide our churches toward God’s vision.”
  • We must rebuild an apologetic for and practice of community based on God’s identity and dream for relational oneness.
  • The biblical record shows that true community offers four blessings:
    • We get strength for life’s storms
    • We receive wisdom for making important decisions
    • We experience accountability, which is vital to spiritual growth
    • We find acceptance that helps us repair our wounds

    • And you don’t have to remind Laurie and I of this one…

  • “Two are better than one… if one falls down, his friend can help him up.” – Eccl. 4:9-10
  • “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:12-13) Jesus really does expect us to lay down whatever we have, however we need to, whenever requested. Is your church living up to its Christ-mandated potential for community? – OUCH. Maybe I should just stop there and let everyone chew on that.

Donahue and Robinson also give the case for the Organizational evidence for community in a church. I won’t go much into it but it’s very good, solid teaching and uses the example of Jethro’s teaching to Moses (Exodus 18) regarding the Israelites. In a church of small groups, the principal ensures that everybody is cared for but no one cares for too many people.
In the next chapter, Small Groups are Built on Authentic Relationships, I’ve been chewing on a lot Donahue and Robinson have to say – especially since we’re studying authenticity in our weekly group.

  • Larry Crabb writes, “One small group pastor said to me over lunch, “We’ve got to move to another level. Good things are happening in our groups, but not what most needs to happen, not what I somehow know could happen. We arrange our bodies in a circle, but our souls are sitting in straight-backed chairs facing away from the others.”
  • There is no fast food at the table of community. – That could be a message in and of itself.
  • “I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead!
    I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”     – Phil. 3:10-14 – Paul realizes spiritual transformation doesn’t take place overnight. It’s a race – a marathon.
  • In 2 Peter 1, Paul reminds us that we cannot pursue a life of transformation on our own. It is a progression that culminates in genuine love expressed in community.
  • “Personal prayer, Scripture reading and memorizing, solitude and other spiritual practices are essential, but pursued apart from community they fall short in producing the degree of transformation Christ intends.”
  • “Friends who ask questions and really listen are like water to a parched throat.”
  • “To allow others to see deeply into our lives is the greatest gift we can ever give them.”

Ok. I could seriously go on. But you’ve got enough to chew on for now. Read it. Think about it. Ponder it and ask yourself if you’re building community as God intended. Should you be?
I’m not claiming that I am – but I want to. I hope to. I pray to.
Thoughts? Challenges?

Want more – listen to Brian’s message on regroup from early today.

Lessons from Rick Warren

The DMN shares some lessons Rick Warren says the church should learn and un-learn about church mission work.
The lessons comes from the AP and the summer 2007 issue of Leadership:

We need to learn… humility. The focus of world Christianity in the future will be South America, Africa, and Asia. Get used to it.

To unlearn… our consumer approach to spirituality. The American church needs to move from selfish consumerism to unselfish contribution.

To learn… a new approach to missions, and who does it, and where, and how it’s funded.

To unlearn… our dependence on specialized parachurch ministries. The church is called to embody the whole Gospel.

To learn… to go and to serve. The old approach was praying, then studying, then giving, then — maybe one day — going. Now, we just go and see how we can serve.

To unlearn… our method of goal-setting. Most leaders set their goals too low and try to accomplish them too quickly. We need to set big goals and devote the rest of our lives to accomplishing them.

To learn… that average Christians can do missions. People around the world want to learn from peers — mother to mother, businessperson to businessperson, teen to teen.

To unlearn… our desire to pay. Americans’ reflex is to try to solve a problem by throwing money at it, which often creates dependency and harms the church.

To learn… to trust the people we serve. Assume that indigenous leaders have a better idea of what their people need than we do.

Do you struggle with any of these? Think Warren is right on – or a little off in his assessment?

Another succesful dinner club

We weren’t sure this month’s dinner club would come to fruition with the sudden horrible nasty swelling Poison Ivy rash I had this week (mmm that sounds appetizing) – but with the offensive steroids I took Friday evening and Saturday morning we figured what the heck – let’s do it.
We had a great time with friends from encounter.
Brian and Heather came, along with James and Mary and Jose and Sally.
We had a great meal full of Mediterranean flare.

Laurie and I made Fattouch and Kufta, as well as white rice to put under the Kufta.
Brian and Heather brought a Roasted Chicken with vegetables (I know it had a much fancier name than that but I’ll have to let Brian or Heather remind me of it).
Jose and Sally made a pasta dish with spinach and cheese.
And James and Mary made “Chocolatosophogus” with “Greek coco.”
We also had a great time after dinner with a rousing game of ImagineIf and “Big Bubba” aka “Big Booty.”
It’s amazing what you can find out about people through a game like ImagineIf and even Big Bubba – maybe even more so than a Myspace survey.
Heather took the win on the last round of ImagineIf and won the “Winners Sombrero.”

Oddly enough though, the sombrero is still sitting in our living room. I wonder what that means?
Of course all the photos are online at Flickr – so be sure and check them out. Although without Josh and Shalyn snapping so many photos this time we ended up with a few less than last time. But everyone got their moment to shine.
Next month we’re looking to do a cajun cuisine night and hoping for some really good gumbo so be on the lookout for a possible invite.
Anyone else doing a dinner club at their place – or at a friends? Let us know what theme’s you’ve used and how they turned out.

Help Huckabee reach 5,000

Help Mike Huckabee become the fastest growing candidate on Myspace.
As of 8:30 p.m., Sunday evening, Mike Huckabee has 4,920 friends on Myspace – only 80 away from hitting the 5,000 mark.
The campaign wants to hit 5,000 as soon as possible and is offering a copy of Huckabee’s book to friend #5,000.

From the campaign:
According to TechPresident.com, a website that tracks the growth of the major presidential candidate MySpace pages, we are the second fastest growing page of ALL the candidates– just behind Fred Thompson. So let’s not only help Mike get 5,000 friends, but let’s make his page the fastest growing page on MySpace!

Visit:
myspace.com/mikehuckabeeforpresident to join the campaign for 2008.