Tomorrow.

So.  Tomorrow I give my speech on Community at a church retreat.  I am alternately nervous and excited.  I am not usually nervous standing in front of people - but I am this time.  Maybe because it's my own words that I am sharing.  Anyway - I would appreciate your thoughts and prayers!  If you want to read my speech, it's below.  It's kind of long, and doesn't make as much sense as when I read it aloud.  And I think there are a few spelling and grammar errors.  But it's there if you are interested!

 

Community.  It’s something that I am very passionate about.  It was because of a discussion on community that I began the firsts steps towards my first non-family community living experience.  It’s also why I was asked to speak today.  It is also why writing this out has been so difficult for me.  There is so much floating around in my head that it is difficult to get them down on paper and into something coherent.  Please bear with me as I try to convey what I believe God has taught me about community and what I would like to share with you.

 

To start – a definition.

 

The Following definitions I took from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

 

Community:  A unified body of individuals.

Unified:  from unify – to make into a unit or coherent whole.

Body: 

            There are a few that I liked for body.  As follows:

                        A mass of matter distinct from other masses

            I liked this one because of the distinction.  We are called apart, called to be separate.  In the world, but not of the world.  John 15:19 (part) You do not belong to the world, for I have chosen you out of the world.

                        Something that embodies or gives concrete reality to a thing

            Isn’t that fantastic – that fact that we are body gives concrete reality to Christ.  We embody Him. 

                        A group of persons or things

            Entry level description.  Call it what it is.

                                    A group of individuals organized for some purpose

            Add a little something extra.  Organized for some purpose.  Isn’t that perfect?  Doesn’t that describe what the body of Christ is?

Individuals: 

            A single organism as distinguished from a group

An indivisible entity – This I like because of the indivisible part.  We cannot be divided. 

 

 That being said, a new definition of community could be:

            A coherent group of indivisible entities organized for some purpose.   For a purpose.

 

Now within that definition, there are several groups that we need to address to fully understand the scope of community that we are involved in.

 

Entry level.  Your Church.

 

Next.  The National Church.

 

After.  The Body of Christ – all Christianity

 

Separate.  Your home town.

 

 

Now I spoke earlier of a purpose.  That a community is a group of individuals organized for a purpose.

 

Matthew 28:19 – 20 clearly states that purpose, right before Jesus ascends to the throne of Heaven, he leaves behind these words:

 

19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.

 

There are some key points about these few sentences that I would like to point out.  In these couple of verses we are given our Great Commission.  Our purpose is spelt out.  And – we are also given the promise that will allow us to fulfill that commission.  We are called to go.  And we are called to teach.  And we are promised that Christ will be with us always.  That’s a good promise.

 

Now – this is our ultimate goal and purpose.  However – each community functions differently to achieve this purpose.

 

Here are some simple descriptions of the roles I believe each community has.

 

The role of your home church is to teach, support and equip its members to go into the community they live in.  Evangelism is an individual pursuit because it involves relationships.  However, those individuals need to come from a place where they are being taught truth, and supported and encouraged to follow God’s path.  The home church also needs to function with the other churches in the area as a united and loving example of Christian life.  We need to work with the other churches in our community in love and friendship.  There is only one way to come to God the Father, as John 14:6-7 states:

 

 6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

However, there are different ways of worshipping God and that we must embrace and encourage.  Our goal is to bring people into the family of God.  But we need to understand that the family of God is bigger than just our church.  Working with your local churches is a wonderful way to show how inclusive God’s family can be.

 

Now – the national church functions in a similar way to the local church the way a local church functions to its members.  The national church equips the pastors and leaders and supports and encourages the congregations.  It is a wonderful thing to be able to come together at a retreat like this, or at the National conference and meet with more people and different people and still have the commonality of being a member in the body of Christ.  What a wonderful encouragement to keep running the race!

As I touched on earlier – as a church we need to function in community with the rest of the churches in our locale and in the world.  We are all part of the body of Christ, all having an equal share in the inheritance of Jesus.

I would now like to share with you a specific experience that I had.  I mentioned earlier that it was through a discussion of community that I came to live in community.  This is my story.

Last year I spent 8 months in Vancouver on an internship with (InterVarsity Christian Fellowship) or IVCF.  I lived in a two bedroom house with four other people.  Talk about communal living.  IVCF is all about community.  And on so many different levels.  At the base – it is about building Christian community on university and college campuses.  At a second level it is about community of staff.  That’s where my living situation came into play.  Living together, working together.  At a third level it is about the community that supports the staff and students.  Some of you were part of my extended community while I was on the internship.  People who fund the staff, people who pray for the staff. 

Where it all began.  My journey into the community of IVCF began with a look at a particular community.  It started on a Ranch near Sundre, AB at an IVCF staff gathering.  I had tagged along with friends, even though at the time I wasn’t a student or directly involved in IVCF.  On the Saturday morning we read through Joshua 1.  At this point, Moses has died, and God tells Joshua to cross the Jordan.  On the other side of the Jordan live the Canaanites, and God has told Joshua to take the land from him.  Before the tribes cross the Jordan, three tribes voice a desire to remain on the close side of the Jordan.  The Rebenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh wish to remain in the good land where they presently camp.  It was what Joshua told them that really caught me off guard.

 

But to the Reubenites, the Gadites and the half-tribe of Manasseh, Joshua said, 13 "Remember the command that Moses the servant of the LORD gave you: 'The LORD your God is giving you rest and has granted you this land.' 14 Your wives, your children and your livestock may stay in the land that Moses gave you east of the Jordan, but all your fighting men, fully armed, must cross over ahead of your brothers. You are to help your brothers 15 until the LORD gives them rest, as he has done for you, and until they too have taken possession of the land that the LORD your God is giving them. After that, you may go back and occupy your own land, which Moses the servant of the LORD gave you east of the Jordan toward the sunrise."

 

They were required to help fight.  They were asked to support their brothers.  That is the kind of community God calls us to.

 

At this point in the passage someone made a comment about that being a crazy kind of community.  They asked the question of IVCF – with all of our varying campuses and needs and diverse cultures – is it even possible for us to be that kind of supportive community for each other?  And something became very clear in my mind.  We are not called to a possible community or an impossible community for that matter.  It is irrelevant whether it is possible or not.  God calls us to community.  Simple as that.  God has never dealt in things that are possible.  But – we have his promise in Philippians. (Philippians 4:13) – I can do everything through him who gives me strength.  God can make us into that community if we will allow ourselves to be molded.  God will make us into that community if we listen and obey him the way the Israelites did that day on the shore of the Jordan.

 

It is my belief then, that communities are built on Love.  I believe the ability to love is our greatest strength, the only thing we have that will make a difference in the darkness that is around us.  The love of Christ-turned-man, dying for the world.  The love we have for that Christ, which is obedience to his call.  The love he gives us for our brothers and sisters and those yet to be invited to the family table.

 

When I was in Vancouver I learned that Love is not as simple as it seems.  As defined by M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Travelled, love is the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.  When I first read that, I hated it.  I had just gotten engaged, and that definition held nothing of the romance, the joy, the excitement and the security I felt.  But the more time I spent in Vancouver, with my community, and away from my fiancé, the more I realized this definition is bang on.  God also has a definition for Love.  It is a lot more romantic than Peck’s, but not any simpler.  1 Corinthians 13:4-8

 

 4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

 8Love never fails.

 

As a community we are called to love each other and the community we live in, with this kind of love.  It is incredibly difficult.  I had roommates that I barely even liked, and yet I was called to love them.  There were people on my campus that I had nothing in common with, nothing to draw us together, yet I was called to love them.  I had students that drove me crazy, yet I was called to love them.  Love them how?  Only God knows.  We are all unlovable at best.  We are all imperfect, and selfish.  Yet God calls us to more, because he knows we can be more.  He created us to be more.  Ephesians has a good description of how to live in community:

 

Ephesians 4:2- 6 – Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.  Make every effort to keep the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace.  There is one body and one Spirit – just as you were called to one hope when you were called – one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. 

 

Bearing with one another in love.  God gets that we might not always like each other – but he says bear with each other, in love.  That being said, don’t let people get away with being less than they were created to be, but do it gently. We are not called to be judgmental.  But we are not being loving if we are not concerned with their spiritual growth, with their future eternity.

 

That is why the great commission is all about Love.  We cannot make disciples of the nations if we don’t love them.  That is why I believe that evangelism is a relational pursuit.  It requires a great deal of love, and love, requires a great deal of effort.

 

And community is all about relationships.  You cannot truly be in community with someone if you have no relationship with them.  Part of the word community is commun(e).  To share ones intimate thoughts or feelings with; especially when the exchange is on a spiritual level.

 

We had a house meeting in Vancouver about half way through second semester.  And my roommate asked us the question – do we love each other?  Marva Dawn asked the question in the book – The Unnecessary Pastor – Are you willing to die for each other?  I believe both are significant questions, and I believe they are linked.  And I don’t read Dawn’s questions as the loss of our lives.  I read it as the death of self.  We have to give up our selfish pride and ambition and live 100% in the 1 Corinthians definition of love in order to care about someone else’s spiritual growth.  You cannot love someone with the expectation of getting something in return.  You have to love them purely for the sake of loving them.  And a little surprising thing will happen.  As you love people, you begin to like them.  And it’s way easier to be in a community with people you like!

 

That’s why, to me, becoming a unified body of individuals is impossible without love.  Without love, we are all different, and weird to one another.  We are all individuals with no redeeming traits.  Our gifts seem mismatched and we don’t even want to fight for each other, let alone die for each because we are too busy fighting with each other.  By actively trying to Love – and I stress the trying part.  Because, let’s face it – we are imperfect.  We cannot, on our own, achieve true love.  However – we can try, and by God’s grace we can reach that goal.  By trying to love each other.  By dying to our selves.  By casting off our selfish ambitions and reaching out towards one another, by any God given means – including, but not limited to: hospitality, prayer, dreaming together, sharing together….  If we can do that, if we can be patient and kind and not envious or boastful or proud.  If we will stop being rude, self-seeking, and angry.  If we will stop keeping record of wrongs.  If we will rejoice in the truth, instead of delighting in evil.  If we will protect each other and trust each other, and hope for each other, and through everything be perseverant, then we, through God, will not fail.

 

If you can do all that – you will love each other.  You will accept and appreciate one another’s gifts and you will help nurture those gifts.

 

When you love the members of your church, you will support them in serving your community.  When you love the other churches in your community – you can be unitied in loving and serving your community.  When you love the other CCCC’s churches you can encourage them and pray for them.  And best of all, when you love your community, you will pray for them and love them and serve them, and when God works in their hearts and draws them to himself, he will invite you, to invite them to sit at the family table, further completing the Christian Community their gifts and talents.

 

This is what I know to be true and I will leave you with it in closing:

 

Hebrews 10:19-25

 

19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let 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.