Tag: community

The Necessity of Community

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
What stands out to me about the very earliest believers in Jesus was their amazing transformation (Acts 2:38-47).  Only 53 days earlier these same people had applauded the murder of the Son of God.  But they realized their terrible error, changed their mind, and turned from their sin and embraced the grace of God in Christ.  They became a group of Christians committed to learning more and more about Jesus; sharing their burdens and blessings together; enjoying communion and eating together; praying with and for each other, confessing sin and seeing new life and fresh spiritual health come right in front of their faces.
 
            They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship.  This is a picture of a group of Christian disciples who were hungry for instruction.  They were so hungry for teaching and fellowship that they met every day.  They met in the temple (large group), and in homes (small groups).  Both large group meetings and small group gatherings are necessary for healthy spiritual growth and development.  In other words, this is no superficial once-in-a-while get together; this is a deep devotion and commitment to learning Scripture together, and sharing life together in fellowship.
 
            A simple observation of the text of Acts chapter 2 is that all the pronouns are plural; those pronouns include everyone – not just a select few.  This is why throughout the New Testament the images used to describe the church emphasize its communal nature.  Church as the Body of Christ, the temple of God (building), and as the army of the Lord are all images that require the community of the redeemed working and worshiping and reaching out together in order to glorify God.  True Christian discipleship does not happen apart from life together.
 
            Therefore, we need to be aware of church images that emphasize only the individual and not the community.  For example, seeing the church as a gas station where you fill up your spiritual gas tank when you’re running low ignores the community. Get a good sermon and some energizing worship and hopefully you will make it through the week to another service without running out of gas.  For other people, the church may be more like a movie theatre, a place that offers an hour of escape, and leaving your problems at the door, with the goal of coming out of church feeling better than when you went in.  Or maybe some might view the church as a kind of drug store – a place where you can fill the prescription that will deal with your pain.  Yet others might opt for seeing the church as a big box retailer – a place that offers the best products in a clean and safe environment for you and your family. The church should offer great service and programs at a low price.
 
            Certainly, the church ought to serve and meet individual needs.  The problem arises when we only function as autonomous persons who don’t really need others in order to live the Christian life.  The early church was committed to learning the Word of God together; they committed themselves to fellowship, to practicing hospitality with each other and praying with each other every day.
 
            The results of those two primary communal commitments of learning and fellowshipping on a daily basis was that:  everyone was filled with awe (the fear of the Lord); everyone saw and experienced signs and wonders (miracles); everyone had everything in common (they met one another’s needs – the fact that they sold things implies personal property, not communism); everyone was glad and content with their simplicity of life (“sincere hearts” means they lived simply, and were not encumbered with a lot of stuff and their schedules and calendars overflowing); everyone praised God; everyone enjoyed the favor of the non-Christians around them; and, the result of all this behavior was that people were being saved left and right from their sinful, empty ways of life apart from God.
 
            If any of us today want to have that kind of community dynamic then we must be willing to devote ourselves to biblical teaching and Christian fellowship every day!  No church can become or remain healthy apart from Christian community; it requires doggedly embracing the commitments of learning Scripture, and eating and praying together through being yoked in fellowship.  Being part of a small group that meets once a week, for the purpose of learning more about the Bible and developing community is not really optional equipment for the follower of Jesus.  It is a small thing when you put it in the perspective of the early church meeting every day. 
 
            That early community had such a curiously learning and deeply loving dynamic that the poor among them knew no shame, and the rich knew no pride.  It was a community where the uneducated felt free to drink in knowing more about Jesus, and the leadership graciously gave instruction that they had gained from being with Christ.
 
            In her book Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott shares a story she once heard from her minister that illustrates the necessary presence of others in our journey of faith:  “When my pastor was about seven, her best friend got lost one day. The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, ‘You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.’”  Lamott further writes:  “And that is why I have stayed so close to my church—because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their voices, I can always find my way home.”
 

 

            The church, the Body of Christ, needs you.  The community of the redeemed needs your gifts and abilities, your presence and wisdom.  Disciples are made, formed, and forged in the context of community.  The sharing of your experiences and insights, as well as your hands and feet, are necessary for being spiritually developed in Christ.  Confidence is only gained through practice, and the spiritual practice of community is what is needed.  May the results of that early congregation be our collective experience, as well, as we devote ourselves to the teaching and to the fellowship.

Confess Your Sins to Each Other

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
When it comes to learning a new skill, or developing some practice, it really requires the willingness to take a risk and go to places we have not been before.  But fear of the unknown can hamstring us and be a significant barrier to our development as followers of Jesus.  Any growth in Christian faith will require risk.  Understandably, this is uncomfortable.  Especially as we grow older and settle into certain routines and ways of life, we become used to being in control.  Over time our comfort zone might shrink to encompass little more than the things we are good at, doing the activities that bring us a reasonable chance of success, and avoiding things that leave us vulnerable.
 
            But God calls us to faith, which requires a real sense of dependence and the necessity of putting ourselves out there for him.  So, hearing the biblical phrase “confess your sins to one another” (James 5:16) may cause us to be anxious, nervous, or just downright scared.  All of us, without exception, have our adverse circumstances, our trials, and our tribulations in this life.  The perspective of the Apostle James is that coping and dealing with the things that trouble us and give us grief cannot effectively be dealt with apart from the church.  Overcoming our troubles requires corporate involvement.  The medicine that we need to deal with life is confession of sin and prayer.  It may be a hard pill to swallow, but every good thing in the Christian life is accessed through the humility of confession.
 
It is part of the church leadership’s job to encourage, to listen to confessions, and to pray (James 5:14-15).  The Apostle James clearly puts the burden on the needy person to share his/her need.  You cannot expect others to read your mind or pick up on clues; you should take the initiative to seek prayer and encouragement.  And you should not expect healing to happen if you do not admit your need for help.
 
            In his book Invisible Men, psychologist Michael Addis tells the story about meeting a middle-aged man named Patrick. Although by all accounts Patrick was an easygoing, happily-married family man who ran a successful business, he had just tried to take his own life. After some prodding from Dr. Addis, Patrick finally divulged the events that led to his suicide attempt. His business had steadily slowed until he was unable to make the mortgage payment on their new house. Things went downhill financially from there. Then the economy crashed.  Dr. Addis writes:  “It was Patrick’s response to these events that really struck me. Rather than letting his wife and close friends know about the struggles he was facing, Patrick kept it all to himself. Over time, the gap between what people thought was going on in his life and what was actually going on grew larger, and Patrick became profoundly depressed. He couldn’t face working, but he also couldn’t face telling people how bad things had gotten …. Eventually the depression became so overwhelming that he saw no other way out.  “How could I face them?” he asked. “What would they think of me? In their eyes I’d look like a has-been, somebody whose time had come and gone, only because he couldn’t handle it.”  “But those were extremely difficult experiences you had,” I said. “Nobody could have foreseen the financial difficulties.”  “I should have been able to. Besides, that’s not what I’m talking about. I should have been able to handle it emotionally. Instead, I fell apart and turned into a sniveling little boy. What was I going to say, ‘Oh, Mommy, please help me?’ I couldn’t let people see me like that.”  On the one hand, it seemed obvious to me that no man would want to see himself like a little boy asking for Mommy’s help. But then if you stopped and thought about it, is asking for help worse than dying? How far will a man go to hide his shame? How many Patricks are out there who would rather [suffer alone] than try to break through the gauntlet of silence and invisibility that prevents them from finding the support they so desperately need?”
 
  • Some Christians are emotionally suffering and mentally struggling because of their unforgiving spirit concerning some past event and are holding on to bitterness.  They will not be well until they accept God’s prescription of confession and prayer.
  • Some Christians are suffering in silence and experiencing physical ailments because of a stubborn refusal to admit need and obey the Scripture to confess sins.
  • Some Christians are overwhelmed with life circumstances to the point of physical and emotional exhaustion because they are holding on to things that they think are important, but are not important to God.
  • Some Christians have gone to doctors, counselors, and talked to everyone under the sun about their situation, but have not taken the Bible seriously through confession and prayer to deal with their problem.
  • Some Christians are harboring secret sins and do not have victory over them because, even though they have prayed, their pride has stopped them from confession to others.

 

So what should we do?  We should confess our sins to each other and pray for each other so that we may be healed.  This is the responsibility of every believer.  God has not given a spirit of timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline (2 Timothy 1:7).  We can do this.  I am praying for you, that your personal courage will result in confessing your sins to a trusted Christian person.

True Community

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment
 
 
Not all communities of Christians are alike.  Some churches are vibrant, open, and caring; some churches are downright grumpy as if they were all baptized in pickle juice.  Churches are at different places with each other because to be a genuine God-honoring community takes much work – community cannot be cheaply gained or maintained.
 
M. Scott Peck was a psychiatrist and the author of one of the most read books of the 20th century, The Road Less Traveled.  He wrote many other books, including the lesser known, but just as significant work, The Different Drum, where he argues that we all must march to the beat of a different drum when it comes to community.  He observed and described 4 stages a community must move through in order to become a true authentic loving group of people:
 
1. Pseudo-community.  This is a community where people are polite, nice, friendly, and well-behaved, but say very little about themselves because they are guarded with each other.  They speak in generalities and platitudes.  “How’s it going?”  “It’s going fine.”  Community at this stage, if the people have been together for a long time, is a mile wide and an inch deep.
 
2. Chaos.  Peck labels this stage chaos because it is here that every group of people must experience the out of control feeling (chaos) of doing conflict together.  This stage is doing the irritating work of accountability, and loving each other enough to confront and not let each other stay in the first superficial stage.
 
3. Emptiness.  Peck means here the act of self-emptying love.  In this stage we let go of our ego, and put down our personal demands, so that we can respond to others’ needs.  This is a stage of genuine listening to each other and responding in grace and love, instead of just making dogmatic statements toward each other.  This is where we hear one another’s stories, and extend forgiveness, reconciliation and restoration.  We seek to bridge our differences with integrity, kindness, and concern for the other.
 
4. True community.  Everyone belongs to each other, and we all belong to Jesus.  We give to each other the encouragement that is needed no matter what.  This is a stage of deep honesty, and deep caring.  Sin in the Bible is not so much breaking the rules; sin is giving up on Jesus and/or giving up on his church.  Apathy and lethargy are the twin demons that destroy Christ’s Church.
 

 

What I am stating is neither easy nor popular.  There is more pain in community than outside of it.  But there is also more joy.  And there cannot be life apart from the church.  The perspective of the Christian Scriptures is that we must act Today, because there may not be a tomorrow.  Grace and forgiveness are to be the rule of Christian community, because this emulates the behavior of our Savior, the Lord Jesus.  That cannot happen apart from true community and the work it takes to become one.  So, it is high time to get another perspective on community, a face to face one with real people, rather than a view of the back of people’s heads.  It takes much personal courage to gain community.  Are you willing to do it?

I Am My Brother’s Keeper

On By Tim EhrhardtIn Exploring Church Ministry BlogLeave a comment


It is a common misconception among some Christians today that what others do is none of my business.  Therefore, any bad attitude, each morsel of gossip, every tidbit of running another person down behind their back, and a person’s spiritual lethargy or half-hearted commitment is just politely ignored.  But Christian love will not allow this without a word of exhortation and a helping hand of encouragement.  Every believer is to have a personal interest in the spiritual well-being of others.  It is the spiritual obligation of every Christian to promote the growth in grace of every other Christian.
            Love cannot be expressed in isolation, but only in community.  Proverbs 27:17 says:  As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.  And Proverbs 27:5-6 says:  Better is open rebuke than hidden love.  Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.  There is to be a care, concern, warmth, and willingness to speak truth and grace into the life of others and not leave them wallowing in a superficial Christianity with toxic relationships that are of no benefit to others.
            The Church is to be a gymnasium of the soul where we dig in with a group of believers, be it hell or high water, and commit ourselves to the way of love and good deeds, rather than only having a personal concern for what benefits me.  Even though Cal Ripken, Jr. is one of the greatest individual players in baseball history, what mattered most to him was succeeding as a team. In one interview, he said: “I’d much rather be referred to not as an individually great player, or someone who tore up the record books, but someone who came to the ball park and said: ‘Okay, I’m here. I want to play. What can I do to help us win today?'”   He went on to say:  A lot of people ask, “What is your greatest play—your greatest accomplishment?” I say, “I caught the last out of the World Series.” It wasn’t a great catch—I didn’t dive, I didn’t do a cartwheel and throw the guy out at first base. People’s mouths didn’t drop open on the play. We all want to be part of something bigger. But we all have our little jobs that we have to do as a member of a team. Everybody has their individual responsibilities, but they all have to come together for a main goal, and that’s to win. I’ve had great years when we haven’t won, and they have not been really fulfilling. I’ve had not-so-great years, but we’ve had a good success as a team, and they were more fulfilling. So the most fulfilling moment I could ever have, again, was catching the last out of the World Series—knowing we did it!
            Christians are to consider one another, to pay thoughtful attention to other believers, take an interest in their welfare, and think about how to encourage them (Hebrews 10:24-25).  We are to put some effort into it.  A major opportunity for this occurs at corporate gatherings.  Believers in Jesus are to not be in the habit of skipping opportunities for growth in grace.  Attendance to church services and other Christian gatherings is not an end in itself, but is the means to the end of practicing love and good deeds toward one another.  This implies and requires us to not think solely in terms of what I personally get out of the meeting, but also what we have to offer others.  And what we offer to each other is, quite literally, to spur one another on.  We are to give each other a loving kick in the pants when we need it.  We are to be provoking, inciting, even irritating each other to spend our lives for Christ.
            Please note that this does not mean we lay a guilt trip on people, because Christ’s blood cleanses us from a guilty conscience.  Rather, it means we lovingly come alongside another person and help him/her be effective in walking with Jesus and being a faithful follower of Christ.  If left to ourselves, we end up becoming disillusioned and bitter.  Hebrews 12:15 says: See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.  If you are in a conversation that ends up leading to gossip, or slander, or back-biting, or tearing another down, then you need to step up to the plate and lean into that discussion and call it for what it is.  And after shutting it down you need to not just walk away but turn that conversation into something that encourages and builds up and helps and spurs and incites each other to godliness.  If you are not willing to do that then you had better start fasting and praying for God to grow you up so that you can do His will.  After all, I am my brother’s keeper. 
            How is your Christian community characterized?  What level of accountability exists between one another in your group?  Do people love each other enough to confront?  Is restoration and reconciliation pursued at all costs, or not?  What can you do to help spur others on toward the way of love and good deeds?