The need for community in the Church

I don't normally post back to back like this but I want to express myself on another topic that I was discussing with the Lord as I headed to Ralph's this morning.

That topic is one that has been dear to my heart for years. Namely the need in the Church to get back to a deep and more community oriented involvement with each other as members of His one Body.

Any Christian who reads the New Testament with an open mind and heart should readily see that there is a great big difference between the church of New Testament times and the church of today. Especially in North America where the church is immersed in a generally materialistic and self-centered culture.

The Bible even talks of the need to encourage each other daily.

This need to encourage each other as Christians daily is not an option. Not if we are to live righteous and holy lives in the midst of our corrupt and wicked generation.

We must do this lest any of us end up being hardened in our hearts through the deceitfulness of sin. Where we end up falling into a state of being less than all that God might want us to be and where the sin in our own hearts or in our society as a whole causes us to think that it's okay to play with sin and otherwise engage in sinful behaviour.

But, where is this daily encouragement happening among the Christians? I mean how can I as a Christian find daily encouragement?

While daily encouragement can certainly come to me by way of reading the Bible or a devotional daily the thrust of the involvement the Bible talks about for members of His one Body is not the reading of the Bible in isolation from other Christians.

It is nothing less than a life involvement with each other. Where the pain of another becomes our pain. Where the hope and joy of one is shared and becomes the hope and joy of others.

All for one and one for all, that famous saying of the Three Musketeers, captures more of the spirit that the Lord wants us as members of His Body to have than most Sunday church meetings do.

The Bible's vision of what the Church should be like among it's members is more in line with the comradeship experienced by members of the military who are in the front lines with one another than by the kind of superficial, take it or leave it relationships experienced by most church goers.

Even last night I was talking to another Christian who expressed to me how he himself was not satisfied with the lack of real community in his own church going.

It is a common enough complaint.

The real question in all this is not whether or not we are supposed to be in deep, community type involvement with each other as members of His Body (I am referring to Christians here) or whether it is God's will that we be so. I think on both points there is a settled understanding among Christians that we are to follow after the New Testament example in being so.

The real question is what are we going to do about it?

Do we really love the Lord? Are we really, I mean really willing to do whatever it takes to glorify Him the most through His Body?

What will it take for us as Christians to offer and find daily encouragement in deep, community oriented relationships of the kind talked about in the New Testament?

Certainly at the very least we must be willing to set aside our own self-centered pursuits in life and seek His interests in the Church first and foremost. Where our houses, our cars, our money, and our lives are no longer our own but His.

I recent years I have tended to be very judgmental of the Christians and to consider most nothing less than a bunch of hypocrites.

I have seen what the New Testament talks about and have justified my judgment of the Christians through the clear insight I have had between what the New Testament Church was like and how we are not anywhere near that today.

But such a judgment has not been in line with what God wants of me.

In the last few weeks the Lord has led me to get involved with a local church and I have come face to face with the realization that not all Christians are hypocrites. I mean I knew this in my head before but I have now come face to face with the reality and truth that within otherwise Sunday going churches of the kind that I have so despised there are good hearted Christian brothers and sisters of mine.

I have met them and talked with a number of such Christians in recent weeks and it's been good. Very good.

But the dilemna I was praying about this morning is how can I reconcile the good hearted nature of the Christians I have met and the lack of deep community involvement with each other that is still present in this new church I have been hanging out with?

Good hearted Christians all acknowledge the need for deep relationships and community involvement.

But, it's not happening.

This church, like so many others I have visited or attended...some for as long as several years, is one that is primarily meeting and ministry focused. Not relationship focused.

In other words church life at this church revolves around meetings and ministry and not around relationships with each other. If deep relationships happen they are incidental and secondary to the main church centered focus. Which is on meetings and ministry activity.

I have attended a number of meetings. All well and good but overall the lack of movement toward deep relationship has been somewhat disappointing. The Christians are still too busy in their own lives to make time for deeper relationship building and togetherness in the things of God.

I have to constantly initiate contact. And even when I do such contact doesn't seem to move toward deeper involvement with each other. I may experience a nice meal together. Maybe even read the Bible together but like all such contact...it never goes anywhere with respect to moving toward the involvement with each other that the New Testament talks of.

Its a never ending source of frustration for me with respect to the Church at large.

Practically how can the Christians move toward more involvement with each other?

I am not entirely sure.

One such move might be toward living together. To sharing our homes.

But how realistic is that? I don't know.

I mean I think it's very realistic among those willing to do that but how realistic is it to get the Christians to be willing to do that?

I mean every single Christian should be willing to do whatever leads to the greater glory of God. Any true Christian I mean.

But if we look at what so-called Christians are really willing to do we must either come to the conclusion that many of those who call themselves Christians really aren't or that a great many of them are greatly if not entirely ignorant of God's desire for how the Body should be among it's members.

I am initiating to get together with Christians around me to read the Bible together. I think that's a good start. My hope is that the Lord will move in our hearts to help us see what He would have us see straight from the Word.

The eyes of my heart, in recent years, have not been on the way things are in local churches. With church traditions or otherwise. They have been squarely on what the Bible says.

Maybe if we get back to looking afresh at what the Bible says we will get convicted enough to do something about the Lord's desire for His Body...together.

I can't do it by myself.

Carlos