Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community. Show all posts
obstacles to building relationships
"Common obstacles that hinder redemptive relationships developing in our lives:
- The busyness of life, keeping relationships distant and casual.
- A total immersion in friendships that are activity and happiness based.
- A concious avoidence of close relationships as too scary or messy.
- A formal commitment to church activities, with no real connection to people
- One way, ministry driven friendships in which you always minister to others, but never allow others to minister to you.
- Self-centred "meet my felt needs" relationships that keep you always receiving but seldom giving.
- A private, independant "just me and God" approach to the Christian life
- Theology as a replacement for relationship. Knowing God as a life of study, rather than the pursuit of God and his people."
Timothy Lane & Paul Tripp, How People Change
people are not efficient
"Spending time with other people is not very efficient! But God has a bigger and, quite frankly, messier and less efficient plan.
Being involved with people is time consuming, messy and complicated. from our point of view it is inefficient, but from God's point of view it is the best way to encourage growth in grace... That means we will have to make time for these kinds of friendships to emerge and grow. we will have to be realistic too. Close relationships make it more likely that you will sin against someone or that someone will sin against you."
Timothy Lane & Paul Tripp, How People Change
stunted growth
"A Jesus-centered community is an attractive
community—a community that encourages, forgives, serves, loves, and
invites non-Christians into its community.
Although God ultimately causes our growth, God has chosen the community to facilitate that growth!
If we do not share life together, we stunt the
growth of the church. In order to nurture the field and increase the
harvest, we must be involved in one another’s lives. This means
surrendering our “rights” to individualistic privacy, convenience, and
comfort."
Jonathan Dodson, Gospel-Centered Discipleship
classroom or community?
"The gospel creates community. Because it points us to the One who died for his enemies, it creates relationships of service rather than selfishness. Because it removes both fear and pride, people get along inside the church who could never get along outside. Because it calls us to holiness, the people of God live in loving bonds of mutual accountability and discipline. Thus the gospel creates a human community radically different from any society around it.
Growth in grace, wisdom, and character does not happen primarily in classes and instruction, through large worship gatherings, or even in solitude. Most often, growth happens through deep relationships and in communities where the implications of the gospel are worked out cognitively and worked in practically
We do not find a classroom relationship between Jesus and his students, nor did his students relate this way with one another. Instead, he created a community of learning and practice in which there was plenty of time to work out truth in discussion, dialogue, and application.
There is no more important means of discipleship — of the formation of Christian character — than deep involvement in the life of the church, the Christian community."
Tim Keller, Center church
authentic community
"The regular confession of sin, struggles, fears, and failures is common in gospel-centered community—which only makes sense, because an essential foundation for this community is the reality that all have fallen woefully short of the glory of God, and that each of us continues to battle our selfish natures daily. The only reason the community exists, in fact, is because Christ has called it into existence, not because any of us earned the right to be in community
...When community is honest and authentic, people begin to experience (and lead others to experience) freedom from wearing a mask because Jesus sets people free from the need to be hypocrites. He liberates religious overachievers controlled and dominated by a religious system they can never beat. He emancipates those shackled to their secrets by bringing light to the darkness. He tears off the masks of the seemingly perfect and allows them to walk in the open. That’s the nature of authenticity in Jesus-centered community—people constantly emerging from the shadows and finding the sufficiency of grace."
no lone rangers
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.
(John 1:1-2 ESV)
The
earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the
deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
(Genesis 1:2 ESV)The biblical story doesn’t start with creation, but with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit before creation. The trinity. God existed in community before He started creating anything. Three people loving each other (Mike Reeves). The Father, Son and Holy Spirit loved each other perfectly, they did not need us to build a community. They existed in perfect community.
Then
God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness... So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male
and female he created them.
(Genesis 1:26-27 ESV)God says that Adam (and Eve) created in OUR image, in a clear reference to the trinity. One of the ways that we are made in God’s image is our ability to relate to each other in community. Our ability to love as a reflection of the perfect love shared between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
(Genesis 1:28 ESV)
Adam and Eve were given the task of creating community, filling the earth with people, God’s people. When sin enters the picture in Genesis 3, one of it’s effects is on the relationship between Adam and Eve, and consequently every other human relationship that has ever existed. Sin corrupts community in the same way it does with everything else and it isn’t long until Cain is murdering his brother.
Now the whole earth had one language and the same words... And they said to one another... “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.” And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. And the LORD said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” So the LORD dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth. And from there the LORD dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
(Genesis 11:1-9 ESV)
The tower of Babel shows us a community centered on itself. A community-centered community which becomes focussed on making a name for itself. As a result, God invents different languages so that the people can’t understand each other! While this may seem harsh, it is God’s mercy to remind us of our limitations. If God intervenes to stop me making a name for myself, that is for my good. If God causes problems to bubble to the surface in communities, it is to show their need to be centered on Him, where community will flourish instead of self-destructing.
Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
(Genesis 12:1-3 ESV)
When God calls Abraham in Genesis 12, he outlines his plan to make a community - a great nation. This community will be blessed by God so that they will be a blessing to others. From that moment on, being a descendent of Abraham, part of God’s people, God’s community, was the primary way that the Israelites identified themselves. It wasn’t a hobby, it was who they were.
And he called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction. The names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.
(Matthew 10:1-4 ESV)
Jesus taught and spoke to large groups of people, but his primary strategy was to invest the bulk of his time into 12 disciples. He explained his parables to them, taught them in more detail, involved them in his mission and lived life with them. Jesus did not have to operate in this way, but chose to work through community. This community was very diverse, including fisherman, a tax collector and a religious revolutionary, but they were united, not around their shared interests, but around Jesus.
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
(1 Peter 2:4-5 ESV)
While our salvation does have a personal aspect to it, we are saved to be individual Christians. We are described as living stones that are being built up together. While it may be technically possible to be a Christian and not part of a church community, this category does not exist in the bible and should not exist today. The church is God’s plan for his mission, our sanctification and his glory. We can not come up with a better plan!
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”
(Revelation 7:9-10 ESV)
Our future holds a glorious, perfect community. All tribes, peoples and languages (the reversal of Babel) are represented. This diverse community is not standing around patting each other on the back for becoming united with each other. This community is centered on one thing; the Lamb [who was slain and] who is seated on the throne - Jesus.
the christian community
42And
they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship,
to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43And awe came upon every
soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.
44And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45And
they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the
proceeds to all, as any had need. 46And day by day, attending the
temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their
food with glad and generous hearts, 47praising God and having favor with
all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who
were being saved.
Together
We
are not saved to be individual, lone-ranger Christians. We are saved to
be part of a community of Christians - the church. The church is the way
that God has designed the Christian life to work, it is the way that he
intends for us to grow. Discipleship is a community project. We can’t
just opt out. The early church were “devoted” to this, that is not
language that suggests turning up for an hour and a half on a Sunday, as
long as there is nothing better on! They were committed to this. They
were together - listening together, teaching together, praying together,
eating together, serving together, praising god together.
Gospel Partnership
This
wasn’t a community focused on building community. It was a community focused on the gospel.
Fellowship wasn’t the goal, God was the goal. They were devoted to the
apostles teaching, the breaking of bread and prayers. The church
community grows closer to God and each other by being centered around
God’s word, studying it and letting it shape our lives. The church
community is united, not by their uniformity, but by their common focal
point of the gospel, continually remembering Jesus death and
resurrection through the breaking of bread. The church community prays
for each other.
All of life
They
were attending the temple together - being the church does involve
gathering together for communal worship, regularly - but they were also
breaking bread in their homes - living life with people during the week.
Christianity wasn’t about changing what they did on a Sunday morning,
but it was about all of their life. They met each other’s practical needs when they saw them.
Their “spiritual life” wasn’t restricted to a certain time or certain
location. They were talking about God with each other, encouraging each
other, praying for each other. ("we should be teaching each other the
bible as we are out walking, driving the car or washing up" Total Church
p115)
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