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Thursday, 14 July 2011 16:42 |
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Over late I have been thinking about the word community, more importantly Christian community. We seem to use this word community quite a lot in church-world, and it seems to have a variety of expressions and connotations depending upon who is using it, and their particular focus.
Now having experienced firsthand numerous expressions of Christian community, ranging from the local church model of large and small groups to more formal house-cluster and communal arrangements. I realize that over my 38 years as a believer, I’ve seen and experienced both the good and the not so good expressions of this word – community!
Now Christian community as I understand it, is not simply a group of people who get together to build relationships and hangout together for one reason or another. Rather at the heart it is a group of people who are seeking to develop supportive and encouraging relationships for the purpose of building one another up in their faith and life experiences; helping each other become more mature disciple’s of Christ. In community, relationships are highly intentional because that is where we need to deal with real life issues that confront all or us. It’s a place of loving encouragement and accountability, a place where we are free to be our self regardless of our life-work roles and responsibilities.
When you consider the New Testament church, we don’t read much about it being commanded to do most of the things that they did. It often just says, statements like, ‘the believers were all together and had everything in common…’ It seems they helped each other by selling their stuff and gave to anyone that had a need, regardless of who they were. In this way, community had a very inherent and authentic understanding and definition in the early church.
In Acts chapter 2 it says; ‘they met everyday in the temple courts, broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people.’ And in Acts chapter 4 it goes on to say that; ‘they were one in heart and mind not claiming anything for themselves. They shared everything they had and from time to time, those who owned lands or houses sold them to help those in need.’ I gather from this, that community was very implicit to their faith. You saw one you experienced the other - there was no dichotomy.
The English version of the Greek word (kοινωνία) that describes this Christian fellowship – community in Acts chapter 2, is koinonia. It literally means communion by intimate participation. This word is used frequently in the New Testament, to describe relationships within the early Christian church. For our purposes, the essential meaning of koinonia, embraces concepts conveyed by English terms such as, community, communion, joint participation, sharing and intimacy.
Now I’m not suggesting for one minute that we return to the ways of the early church and do everything as they did. However I would suggest that inherent in their way-of-life, are some fundamental core-values that I believe are keys to living a life of faith in today’s society – consider these five:
· They seemed to view their faith in the context of a community of believers,
· When there was a need, it was taken care of by the community first before seeking assistance elsewhere,
· Their learning, worship and prayer took place in the context of community,
· The believers appeared to be one in heart and mind as they connected to God’s eternal purpose,
· Their relationship to Christ had in some amazing way (regardless of their background, status or culture), connected them relationally through their shared beliefs, hopes and dreams in the greatest of causes – the kingdom of God.
Another striking feature of this community was how their faith was not only lived out individually, it was lived out, or structured, around dependence on the community of faith they shared with others. Now unfortunately, we live in a Western culture that is more structured around the autonomous self than extended families, let alone community: where faith in our cultural context is viewed almost exclusively as a private and individual experience between an individual and God, and has little or nothing to do with others. Where the need for community or interdependence, is seen more as a weakness than a strength.
With few exceptions, the modern church is no longer a body of people living out a faith journey together as part of the body of Christ; rather it is a place people attend to get their spiritual high, fix or pick-me-up for the week or month ahead. If the message and the worship (music) is good, and they felt good vibes from being there, then church was good. However as you have heard me share in previous blogs, church is not the building; nor is it the people who occupy the platform or the program of the institution, no matter how good they all may be, rather it is the gathering of believers who come together as the household of faith. Regardless of the size of our congregations, we all need community – koinonia, communion with joint participation, sharing and intimacy.
We read this in Paul’s writings all the time, that we are the household of God, a community of faith together as one body. In Romans 12:4 Paul says, “Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function so in Christ we who are many form one body and each member belongs to all the others…” I don’t know about you, but this is the antithesis of a private and individualistic faith. New Testament Christianity was a non-private and very non-individualistic experience.
Today in our modern world the principle of Christian community - koinonia, is still valid. Maybe even more so as societies across the Western world have been unraveling for decades resulting in community breakdown at all levels of society.
Community has always been a tool that God uses for His people (Old Testament as well as New Testament), to grow them up in their faith, calling and mission in life. Now when we try to throw away this tool and say that we don't need it anymore, we are in fact telling God that we have a better plan than His. Now I don’t think it’s too harsh an observation to make, to say that New Testament Christianity and its inherent understanding of faith, lived in community, has largely been lost to the majority of the modern church.
The question is are we prepared to once again rediscover it, even if we live in a culture that marshals all its forces against it? For Christian community - koinonia, is not a value that we have invented, indeed it is an inherent understanding and underpinning of New Testament Christianity.
We loose it to our peril!
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Thursday, 30 June 2011 21:26 |
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When we study the Gospels we see that Jesus did not approach everyone in the same way. He appears to look for the right way to enter into another person’s world.
I love to study people; some just for the sake of it, as I sit in busy airport terminals or visit bustling shopping centres. However at other times I place myself in situations, where people gather for one reason or another, asking the Holy Spirit to give me the heart, compassion and opportunity to be an answer to their need. This has led me to many meaningful connections and discussions about life and faith; on occasion praying for people and seeing God do amazing things. It’s in these untamed fields of the kingdom - out there in real life, that Jesus invites us to discover Him at work. In the Gospels Jesus simply invited His followers, to see the kingdom at work, to embrace it, to believe in the unfading reality of it and to join in what the Father was already doing in the world. John 5:19, I only do what I see my Father doing, said Jesus.
As we seek to penetrate our culture and cultivate Kingdom friendships we need to, like Jesus, look for that door into the lives of others. As we discover how people first came into contact with Jesus, we soon discover just how Jesus was incredibly observant and sensitive to the needs of each individual. In John chapter 8, we see how impacting and sensitive Jesus was when He ministered to the adulteress. Friends, Jesus wants us to look for the best and most appropriate way that we can positively impact those we come into contact with each day. Jesus spent time with people, because it takes time to build meaningful relationships with those we are called to serve.
Remember, how He ate with His disciples, walked with them, spent large “chunks” of time with them. Jesus showed them that He believed in them, and they in turn trusted Him and followed His guidance. If we, like Jesus, take time to build meaningful relationships with others, in our congregations and beyond; to be prepared to take risks for the sake of others, exercising patience with one another and believing in one another, we will be richly rewarded.
Therefore, be observant and incredibly sensitive to the needs of others!
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Monday, 13 June 2011 11:59 |
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On Saturday the 28th May, hundreds of people from churches around Brisbane formed into teams to provide practical support and encouragement to many homes and businesses in their local communities; some of them had been affected in the January floods. They united to help out householders who needed a hand in their homes. In a variety of ways, the seed we called Yes! We Care, planted some 6 years ago, continues to have an impact across the city. Now into its 6th year, it’s a program of offering practical help,and support to householders struggling to keep up with the tasks at home. Here I am at breakfast, discussing the day’s activity with Pastor Ric Benson, Senior Pastor of Kenmore Baptist Church, the lead church in the Yes! We Care program. Again with the support of Brisbane's Lord Mayor Graham Quirk, YWC was able to reach around 300 householders. Teams from different churches were given a variety of tasks to perform including gardening, pruning bushes and trees, chopping small trees and household cleaning, etc.
 There was a team of people with utilities and trailers who visited homes where rubbish removal was needed - a very necessary role. All was done cheerfully and efficiently. The response from local communities that had YWC teams has been awesome, and phone calls and emails have been received expressing thanks. Hear what one person had to say, “I would like to send my deepest thanks and gratitude to all the wonderful people who came to my home yesterday and worked so hard. I was totally overwhelmed by everyone's kindness. I can't say thank you enough. There is no way I could have managed this on my own."
As in previous years, Yes! We Care was a church-wide effort with young children, teenagers, young adults, families and older people all coming together in unity to serve the community. Some churches participating, had breakfast for their teams before heading out for the day.  One church ran ‘Connect-One,’ with their YWC campaign, to focus their volunteers attention on forming significant ongoing relationships with those they helped. Having fewer jobs than previous years, this provided space for the Yes! We Care volunteers to form meaningful relationships. From early reports, it does appear that long-term significant relationships are forming. As teams had breakfast and collected their work details, they then scattered out into the community to pray, care, and share the good news of Jesus to their neighbours. The church with the Connect-One outreach, reported that, some of those they helped came to their Sunday service and heard reports of how God used the teams to bless many others!
Joyce Chong the Yes! We Care Coordinator says; "It was great to see and sense the excitement of the day as volunteers threw themselves into the spirit of YWC, and shared our love and faith in the best way we know. The reduced number of households this year was a blessing in itself as the relationships that were developed during the day were worth all the effort. From feedback that I’ve heard at our National Day of Thanksgiving Sunday celebration at my church (Kenmore Baptist Church), people (volunteers and householders alike) were blown away by the experience and the blessings that was unfolding before their eyes. I always look forward to witness the change in people's lives as a result of serving in Yes! We Care. The joy and excitement that is so obvious through the congregation as a result of reaching out to the community is worth all the hours of preparation for the day. If one focus’s on the outcome of what YWC was first designed to deliver, one is not disappointed. YWC volunteers can testify to that.”
Like in previous years, volunteers discovered that helping out is an uplifting experience. They get energized - there's a real spirit of enjoyment about it as teams work together seeing their accomplishment lift the burden off the shoulders of a needy person or family. As one volunteer said, “When you walk away knowing that you have achieved something for an individual or family - for hundreds of people ultimately throughout the entire day - then it's really an incredibly rewarding and enriching experience; I will be doing Yes! We Care again next year.”
Why not consider being part of this exciting experience and do something like Yes! We Care in your community?
You can take a look at the Yes! We Care website at: www.yeswecare.org <http://www.yeswecare.org>
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Tuesday, 31 May 2011 12:40 |
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I often get asked the question, why do good people go through hard and difficult times? There are several scriptures that spring to my mind like, “…though a righteous man falls seven times, he rises again…” Proverbs 24:16 (NIV); to “be joyful always, pray…give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will…” 1 Thess. 5:16-18 (NIV) and James 1:2 “consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds…” (NIV). What incongruity – counting a hardship or trial as a place in which to give thanks and experience joy! But in reality I don’t have any other answer other than I believe God knows how we feel and what we are going through each time it happens. I have to believe this otherwise my concept of a sovereign, omnipotent and holy God is shattered, and my friends in persecuted nations suffering and arrested for their Christian faith is meaningless.
I like this quote from Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy, “winter [times of hardship] comes but nothing irredeemable can happen to you. Nothing beyond the redemption of God can happen to you.” Like Job, Jeremiah and Paul, we worship a sovereign God who holds the times and seasons of creation in His hands. He holds our life in those very same hands. That’s my overriding assurance in and through all things. “This season with its trials and tribulations, joys and celebrations is my time of apprenticeship, to learn from Jesus an undying life with a future good one that is as large as God Himself,” says Willard. “We are co-conspirators now filled with joyful anticipation of a future so full of beauty and goodness, that we can hardly imagine what it will actually be like.”
At a talk recently given by Philip Yancey, he said, ‘life beckons all of us to a speedy conclusion, we all march towards a long winter time when we come to the end of our present life, but what is important is not so much what we have done, in reality it is of little significance in the light of the bigger question. Which is, the life that lies before us and the kind of person we have become through all the trials, tribulations, joys and celebrations, for His kingdom lies endless before all of us, an eternal dimension of being awaits all of us’. Now sometime ahead of us, at an appropriate time, we will be assigned new creational responsibilities in this glorious expanse of God’s eternity, and all of us will be in for a few surprises I’m sure!
But for now, in those often hard winter like place of life that we all must travel through, I am ministered to in knowing that “…Blessed is the man [or woman] who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. He is like a tree planted by the water…does not fear when heat comes… leaves are always green…has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit….” Jeremiah 17:7 (NIV) Regardless of the hardship or trails that I might be experiencing, this scripture assures me that even in the harshest of times and conditions, my life is in His hands, I am still growing and able to bear fruit.
Did you know that trees do most of their growing during the winter months? I believe this to be true about people…we grow in such times. When in a time of crisis, hardship, difficulty or shear frustration with life, those times that can best be described as winter seasons, we often experience a spiritual renaissances and significant spiritual and life change occurs. It’s often in these dark times, these winter seasons in our life, where God fills us with fresh hope and restorative power. Here in these tough times, we are often challenged and made to consider life from a different perspective. It’s often an uncomfortable experience yet it’s one that if perused, will open up fresh purpose and direction even through the pain, leading us to a richer and unshakable life, one that is more reliant on the reality of God’s love. The truth is, nothing’s irredeemable: in all seasons believers can offer up thanks to God because in truth, all things work for His glory and our own good. (Rom. 8:28)
May you be one of those Jeremiah 17:7 trees, whose roots go deep and produces in all seasons.
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Ben Gray is a natural when it comes to breaking down biblical concepts and expressing their significance to the world today. His knowledge of the Word and depth of insight define his biblical worldview from which comes fresh revelation for the body of Christ.
