We had our first leadership training for community 2.0 Sunday night. I felt a lot of excitement in the air as people are preparing to lead and host new groups starting April 15.
The questions were good and questions since then have been good as well.
I really felt like several people in my current community group may have had a better grasp of the vision than I did tonight. There was doubt about the outcome, means and so forth but in the end I think they saw the dream even more so than I have.
Now the question is how do we reach that goal?
How do we reach a place where living life together is real, spontaneous and Biblical?
Life is very spontaneous. It’s not built around a daily or weekly schedule time. Life hits you at 3 p.m. on a Thursday afternoon and at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night.
Life is meeting friends for a spontaneous dinner at a local restaurant. Meeting over coffee to discuss the latest job promotion. It’s sharing hurts, joys, fears and loves.
Can you really program that? Can you create a six-step program for what we envision?
I’m currently reading Creating Community by Andy Stanley and Bill Willits. It’s very inspiring for where I am in my life right now.
We read of God’s dream for us in the words of Jesus as recorded in John 17. This is really the recording of a prayer. As Jesus moves toward the cross, He prays not for Himself, but for those He will leave behind. With his life almost over, He discloses what’s closest to His heart, what’s foremost on his mind.
Stanley and Willits continue with an insight from authors Bill Donahue and Russ Robinson:
It is sometimes said that when someone faces death, one’s conversation reveals his or her deepest passions, hopes and dreams. That’s why we go out of our way to honor dying wishes. In his final hours, Jesus gives us clues to His chief concerns.
Jesus’ dream and goal dealt with the depth of the relationships His followers had with one another.
For I’m no longer going to be visible in the world;
They’ll continue in the world
While I return to you.
Holy Father, guard them as they pursue this life
That you conferred as a gift through me,
So they can be one heart and mind
As we are one heart and mind.
Jesus wanted His disciples to be one as Jesus, The Father and The Holy Spirit are one. One that encourages one another, supports one another, loves one another, defers to one another and glorifies one another.
And Jesus’ prayer was not only for his 12 disciples but for all those who would follow them. Even the Christians of today and tomorrow.
I’m praying not only for them
But also for those who will believe in me
Because of them and their witness about me.
The goal is for all of them to become one heart and mind—
Just as you, Father, are in me and I in you,
So they might be one heart and mind with us.
Then the world might believe that you, in fact, sent me.
I love that last part. Read those last two sentences again.
If they are one in heart and mind with us then the world will believe in God.
Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it?
Could it be that the denominations and church splits that continue to plague Christianity are turning more people away than they’re bringing in?
Why would a sinner want to become a part of a group that can’t even sit through a church service together.
They can go to a movie and sit in a room full of like-minded people. What do they need a church for that can’t even find enough common ground to stick through a church split?
Jesus is saying that the credibility of His life and message in the eyes of unbelievers is dependent upon the way we as His followers relate with one another. It’s as if Jesus is saying that unbelievers are just waiting to believe, but the question is, will they see us relating in this magnetic, irresistible way?
This reminds me of the immigration debate from earlier…
A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. Bu this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
Hmmm. They will know that we are Christians by our protests? By our T-Shirts? By our bumper stickers. No its much simpler. They will know we are Christians by our love.
Stanley and Willits suggest that this makes the stakes extremely high.
Do you grasp why we can’t settle for anything less than Jesus’ dream for community? The credibility of the gospel is at stake!
As Francis Schaeffer rightly said, “Our relationship with each other is the criterion the world uses to judge whether our message is truthful — Christian community is the final apologetic.
Wow. After that I feel like I have a lot of sins to confess. And its time for me to get over the “annoyance” of a friend wanting to come over un-announced when I have other things I’d rather be doing. It’s time for me to get over the idea that helping someone and loving someone might not be necessary because it might mean I have to sacrifice or they might get something that someone “more deserving” would get. It means it’s time to pony up and put this Christian love thing to work.
