Walking into Community

As Heather and I have talked over the past couple of years in regards to planting a church, a few necessary elements surfaced. The first two elements that we felt God telling us were necessary for a church plant to reach this generation are Truth and Beauty. We will let you all in on the vision for these two at a later time, but for now I want to share a little bit with you about the third: Community.

Community has become a buzz word in church circles today. If you go to the Christian book store you will find books upon books about "community" groups, small groups, home groups, cell groups, etc, etc, etc, all attempting to introduce the church to this much needed element of "community."

Dictionary.com defines community as a locality inhabited by a a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage. But as we look at the Bible, this is in no way what the church in the 1st century looked like. This definition could mean a number of things. This definition describes book clubs, PTO, swim teams, country clubs, and any other social connection we can really have.
As human beings, he have a vast number of social connections. Have you ever wondered why? Why do we want to belong? Why, though we are buried under a schedule of tasks and plans, do we still commit ourselves to numerous social engagements? I believe it is because God created us in His image. In the Godhead there is perfect community. This relationship is one of ultimate fulfillment. God created us to need community, true community, and we know it to be true when He said in Genesis that it was not good for man to be alone.

As we look down the road here at the beginning of this year of planting a church, we long for true community. We don't want to create another club or group that enjoys shallow relationship and vague endearment. We long for what the Bible calls in the Greek koinonia. We desire to see God bring together people under a common banner. That banner is Jesus and His mission that He has left for the church: the ministry of reconciliation.

I am happy to report that just in the past 3 days we have begun to truly experience this. We are working with Matthias' Lot in St. Charles, MO (www.matthiaslot.com) mostly because they are a church that already does what we desire to do.

For example, at 5 o'clock on Saturday, an hour after we rolled into town with a UHaul truck and trailer, exhausted from 3 days of travel and packing, we watched as 33 people showed up to serve us by unloading our stuff. It took the group only 34 minutes to have it all in the house in the right rooms. The amazing thing is that this isn't a church of thousands, but averages a little over 200 every week at worship.

Sunday we went to the "Lot Family Celebration" and watched as families and singles, young and less young, enjoy true community with worship, whiffle-ball and tons of food. Last night we attended the Matthias' Lot Values class, teaching us the doctrine and values of the church. It lasted an hour and a half. Immediately after we prayed to close, all at once everyone naturally turned to those around them and engaged in real conversation for almost 2 hours!

The greatest thing for us in this whole this is that it is not forced. The conversation, the fellowship, the serving of others is not an obligatory task. No one is grumbling. No one is awkwardly trying to fake a smile. We feel so blessed to have been welcomed in to such a community of people who love Jesus and want to make Him famous. We look forward to the next little bit as we make more relationships and grow in community.

I pray that those of you reading this would long for this type of community. That you would hate gossip and back-biting because it is the enemy of fellowship. I pray that you would seek it out. I pray that you would want to see it created by started within your own relationships.