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.