At
the mere mention of the word community, people often eye you as if you
had dropped in from another world, smile tolerantly, and hope you change the
subject. Good, sensible, Christian people. They fear that you're going to tell
them they have to sell all they own, move to a farm, wear bib overalls, and
raise peanuts. Or that they have to abandon their fertilized lawns and move to
the inner city. Because they misunderstand the idea of community, many
Christians don't want to think about it at all.
To
avoid thinking about community simply because we misunderstand it will deprive
us of one of God’s greatest gifts. The idea of community is, in a sense, from
another world, a world very unlike our own. But it is neither from the world of
communes in Vermont nor from the placid world of cookies and tea Christians
share before they rush back to their isolated lives. Community is from the
world as God wants it to be. It is the gift of a rich and challenging life
together, one that we need and can receive with joy.
Christian
community is simply sharing a common life in Christ. It moves us beyond the
self-interested isolation of private lives and beyond the superficial social
contacts that pass for "Christian fellowship." The biblical ideal of
community challenges us instead to commit ourselves to life together as the
people of God.
We
know all too well that maturity takes time. We know less well that it also takes
our sisters and brothers in Christ. It’s a process that is revealed in the "each
other" language of the New Testament: Love one another, forgive each
other, regard each other more highly than yourselves. Teach and correct each
other, encourage each other, pray for each other, and bear each other’s burdens.
Be friends with one another, kind, compassionate, and generous in hospitality.
Serve one another and submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. This
list just scratches the surface, but it is enough to remind us that we need the
community of faith to grow up in Christ.
Christian
community is the place of our continuing conversion. Its goal is that,
individually and together, we should become mature, no longer knocked around by
clever religious hucksters, but able to stand tall and straight, embodying the
very "fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:11-16).
Howard
Macy is a Professor Emeritus at George Fox University. He is the author of Rhythms
of the Inner Life.