Community

Thursday, June 5, 2008 this date is significant because we launched a community group meeting in our home. Some folks from our church family attended and I think we had a very good start. Let me just briefly give you the purpose of the group. It is to be both a Gospel centered and community centered group. That means we will equally emphasize biblical study and building authentic Christian Community (which we can only know through biblical study) We began with a meal together and conversation and then moved into a Bible study time. Here is the text we studied,

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.
(Act 2:42-47)

We noticed the activity of the early church, what they did and how often they did it. It was amazing to see how connected the early church was to each other. They studied together, they spent time getting to know each other, they ate together, they prayed together, and they were with each other doing these things daily. They shared their possessions with each other and they cared for one another's needs. Wow, what a picture of authentic Christian community! We realized that this is an example of the Church being the Church. We also concluded that we don't have community approaching this example, and we want it. The most amazing part of our discussion was the realization that the early believers were devoted to building this kind of community as it says in the text. We decided we would never have this kind of community if we too aren't devoted to cultivating it. We were also struck by the result of this kind of Christian community, the Lord adding daily to the number being saved. Wow, the power of community in evangelism!
Here is the other text I thought we would study, but we ran out of time.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
(Tit 2:11-14)

This passage talks so much about the wonderful, amazing, glorious grace of God expressed in Christ that brings us salvation. We get a beautiful and powerful description of the effect of that grace in our lives to transform us. One of the transforming effects of God's grace in Christ is that it makes us into God's people. We are a community of faith, because Jesus made us into a community of faith by his grace, through his sacrifice and triumphant resurrection. In a very real way, when we live in authentic Christian community, we are living the Gospel. When we fail to live in community we are missing out on part of the effect of salvation in our lives. We sell ourselves short, we miss out on a blessing, and perhaps worst of all we misrepresent the Gospel.