How is it possible to believe something so deeply and yet find it so difficult to engage? I’m writing this post immediately following a Sunday morning meeting with the Harbor Church leadership team. We’ve just had a very painful conversation. Two of the group members expressed deep frustration with the behavior and choices of another group member. We value authentic community, so we engaged. It was hard. Tears were shed. Accusations were made. Embarrassment was experienced. It hurt.
After the meeting at least two people said to me, “This is too hard. It hurts too badly. I can’t do this.” The primary reason I didn’t panic is that we’ve been here before. I don’t think anyone is leaving. But, every time we get here, we do at least ask the question, “so why do we live in community? Why do we deliberately choose to relate to one another in such an honest, authentic way?
We do it because when we are thinking clearly about what we believe to be true, we affirm that we are actually designed by God to live in community. When the Bible speaks of the church being like a body it is painting a picture of deep, intimate, continuous connection. And it flies in the face of our culture’s commitment to autonomy, isolation, and independence.
I believe that in community is the only way true followers of Jesus can be made. Consumer driven churches that meet for a few hours each week for spectator based events – and/or for a kind of superficial fellowship that cares for people in crises and provides them with a drop of cold water in their desert of loneliness – can not make deeply devoted followers of Jesus. You may be reading this and argue that a consumer driven church produced you and you are a deeply devoted follower of Jesus. I would simply say that you are the exception – not the rule…that when the evidence is considered, deeply devoted followers of Jesus emerge from the consumer driven church in spite of what they do, not because of it.
If you don’t know me, that last sentence will sound very judgmental. There is some judgment in it – but not in the sense of wanting to punish or cut anyone out – rather it’s in the sense of Jesus saying that you would know a tree by its fruit. I spent 30 years in spectator oriented, fellowship based churches. And the evidence is ubiquitous that Christians in these churches are not impacting their families, neighborhoods, and communities . You have to wonder if it’s a design problem!?!
Then about five years ago, I began faithwalking…and the commitment to living in community emerged. In community, you do life with a small group of people so that they actually see where you have been (or not as the case may be) conformed to the image of Christ. The current emphasis on small groups in the consumer driven church doesn’t accomplish this. You can’t see what’s really happening with a person in formal meetings that happens on a regularly scheduled basis. You have to play sports, take road trips, do work projects, cook meals, take care of the community’s kids … together … so that what’s hidden gets revealed. Left to our own devices, we hide our sin – sin does love darkness.
As I read the Scripture and heard in a new way, this call to living in community – to being the body of Christ – my faithwalking journey changed. Here’s how I experienced it. Over the years, a servant’s heart has been developed in me. I credit my mother and dad with a lot of that, but for a variety of reasons, I quickly and with relative ease, respond to needs that others have. But, as I began to live in community, I discovered that I have a critical spirit that assumes that people have bad intentions. Rather than thinking the best, I think the worst. (This is just one example of many places where I am not yet fully conformed to the image of Christ.)
How did I learn about my critical spirit? I learned it from Robin. She’s one of our pastors and is deeply committed to our mission, vision, and values. She has a demonstrated track record of sacrificial service. She’s lived transparently enough that I value her deeply while also being able to see her imperfections. She is challenged by living in community, and she is growing and changing – like all of us are. Her communication style is really different from mine, and our life experiences are really different. Over time, we’ve gotten better, but early on, we frequently miscommunicated. One day, I got really angry at her. We had a telephone conversation in which we exchanged some very heated words with one another.
As we debriefed that conversation later, she said: “When you don’t know what I’m doing, you always expect the worst of me. You assume that I’m not doing the right thing. There’s a very critical spirit in you that you keep hidden most of the time – but that emerges in our relationship from time to time – especially when you don’t know what I’m doing.”
In typical defensive pattern that I have honed to an art form, I deflected her feedback. But, in the days ahead, I pondered her words. At odd times, the Holy Spirit stirred the remembrance of Robin’s feedback. Slowly he began to break down the walls of defensiveness and helped me see myself as Robin saw in me. It was the truth. It was a place where I was not conformed to the image of Christ.
If I hadn’t been living in community, the likelihood that I would ever have faced this is pretty slim. I might have seen it – maybe in a time of reading Scripture or in worship. But, what I know about me – in fact, what I believe about human nature -is that our defensive routines are deeply engrained. They usually got put in place when we got hurt, and out of that experience, we determined never to be hurt again. So we develop behaviors that are designed to protect us. Problem is that usually these behaviors have some aspect of what the Scripture calls sin. But, we practice the behaviors for so long – they become so deeply engrained – that we can’t even see them.
I believe that God designed us for community. He designed us for deep connection with other people. Not only do we find our deepest fulfillment there, but we are most likely to make the most progress toward being conformed to the image of Christ. Like almost everything in life that matters, it costs a lot. But, the cost is ultimately worth it.
In the U.S. we value our independence with a tenacious fierceness…..and we live in an ongoing epidemic of loneliness that has produced unprecedented divorce, addiction, and family destruction. I believe that we are designed for a deep level of interdependence…that living in community is a key solution to these life destroying maladies. For me, it’s not just community – it’s Christian community …not the cultural form of Christianity that has emerged in my generation in the U.S … and not the religious form of community that is about legalism and ritual. I’m taking about the community that holds the life and teachings of Jesus at it’s core – a community of grace that accepts people where and loves them patiently like God loves us…and a community that calls people to truth that affirms that Jesus sets the standard and the standards give life.
Today, living in community was hard – it often is. But, it was also deeply meaningful. I’m going to keep going there – not because it’s easy but because it empowers me to live like I was designed by God to live.