The Gift of Community
In his classic work on Christian community, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes this:
“The physical presence of other Christians is a source of incomparable joy and strength to the believer…It is easily forgotten that the community of Christians is a gift of grace from the kingdom of God, a gift that can be taken from us any day—that the time still separating us from the most profound loneliness may be brief indeed. Therefore, let those who until now have had the privilege of living a Christian life together with other Christians praise God’s grace from the bottom of their hearts. Let them thank God on their knees and realize: it is grace, nothing but grace, that we are still permitted to live in the community of Christians today.”
Many of us haven’t experienced the total isolation of imprisonment or the need to take our faith underground for fear of persecution like many Christians around the world today. However, we have likely all experienced both the richness of Christian community and the loneliness of feeling disconnected. And it often comes in seasons. God has blessed me with several seasons in my life of rich, daily Chrisitian community in the church, in college, and in my summers working at a Christian camp. I’ve also tasted seasons of loneliness where God has met my isolation and doubts with reminders of his constant presence. The seasons of plenty teach us what to long for during the seasons of want.
Whichever season you find yourself in, God calls us, as much as we’re able, to gather together with other believers around prayer and the Word, sharing our lives together and bearing each other’s burdens. We’re relational beings, after all, created in the image of a Triune God. Bonhoeffer goes on to explain the importance of Christ-centered community, what it looks like, how spending time alone with God fuels us for it, and how we can care for one another through things like listening to one another, praying for each other, encouraging each other with gospel truth, and actively looking for ways to meet each other’s physical needs. This type of community is hard. It takes work. It requires us to be vulnerable, even confessing our sins and failures to each other. And yet, it’s the very thing God created us for.
Why am I telling you all this? 3 reasons.
-
The most immediate avenue to practice all of these things is in C-Groups. These groups typically meet twice a month in homes or at the church. We eat together, share our lives together, pray for one another, and spend time applying God’s Word to our everyday lives, asking the hard questions and allowing space for wrestling and doubt. As we’re working to create new groups and more space in groups, we wanted to get a sense for how many people at Christ Church are not currently connected to a C-Group but would like to be. If that’s you, please fill out this short survey to help us plan for how to connect people to C-Groups this Fall.
-
I will also be teaching an Adult Institute class this Fall on Life Together that will help us more deeply appreciate and participate in Christian community. I encourage you to attend!
-
I want to encourage you, even now, that God sees you in your loneliness and will never leave you or forsake you. I’ll end where Bonhoeffer starts: Psalm 133:1 - “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!”
This Sunday as Pastor Andrew preaching on 1 Samuel 27-30 we’ll get to hear how God provided for David when he spent time away from Israel, living amongst the Philistines. We’ll see you Sunday!