God designed us to be in relationship with him and one another. Most of us already know this, but our community time together often ends up in us focusing on trying to meet our own individual needs.
Winn Griffin wrote, "In the Creation narrative, we discover that the creation of humankind, male and female, was a creation of community which told Israel the importance of being the people of God. Community is not just a loosely knit group of people who believe the same thing about certain issues. It is not a group of individualized individuals who gather in a building and do certain religous activities on a regular basis, or small groups that provide occasions for individuals to focus on themselves in the presence of others. Community is a tightly knit group of people on mission, sent by a redeeming God as his conduits for bringing his world back to him. Its vocation is to find the pain of the rebellious world and bring the church/community there to begin the process of redemption. (God's Epic Adventure, 73)"
What a powerful statement! If we all took that seriously, how would it change the way we interact with one another and the world? I know our world would be a much different place if Christians actually lived that out.
1 comment:
Bryan
This really does point out the brokenness of the general Christian community, doesn't it? We see pockets of tightly knit groups (much more 'small group wide' than we do 'church wide') but certainly not at the level that the author is talking about. And we wonder how and why our American / Western culture has become such a mess...
John V
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