Tag Archives: maturity

The Case for Community

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Recently I was asked by my pastor to start a new small group. Our group has grown to about 16 people and that gets to be too intimidating for some people to share. This has led me to reflect on the question “Why community?” This has certainly been a question I have visited before, as small groups were the building blocks of my previous church. But I thought I would take things I’ve learned in the past and merge those with what God is teaching me at present and give a concise but thorough Case for Community.

Biblical Foundations for Community

In Matthew 28:18-20, Jesus encourages His disciples to make disciples. Paul echoes that commission when he writes to Timothy, “and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, commit to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” (2 Timothy 2:2). As we are making disciples helpful to be reminded of Jesus’ prayer for us as disciples and disciple-makers in John 17:21 “May they all be one, as You, Father, are in Me and I am in You. May they also be one in Us, so the world may believe You send Me.”

In thinking about this prayer, Francis Schaeffer writes, “we must never forget that the final apologetic which Jesus gives is the observable love of true Christians for true Christians.” Gilbert Bilezikian says, “According to that prayer, the most convincing proof of the truth of the gospel is the perceptible oneness of his followers.” Without love and unity the world will disbelieve. On the other hand, it is our love and our unity that enables the world to understand and receive the Truth. Jesus’ prayer is the one we should be praying for ourselves and for those we are discipling that we would be one. Colossians 3:14 reminds us that “Above all, put on love – the perfect bond of unity.”

“May They All Be One”

So, the goal of our discipleship should be unity – unity with God, and unity with each other. But how do we get there? Ephesians 4 gives a great answer. Verses 12 and 13 tell us that the leadership of the church is a gift from God “for the training of the saints in the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into a mature man with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness.” Step one, train the saints to do the ministry! Does it even seem feasible for one man to do all the hospital visits, to people he hardly knows, on time he hardly has? Instead, the members of the church should be mobilized to care for the sick, reach out to the lost, feed the hungry, and care for the spiritual needs of their neighbors and friends. The leaders are mobilizers and it should be all of the body serving one another and those outside the faith.

Step two is spiritual maturity. Notice that this step follows service and ministry. We don’t wait until we are seminary trained to begin our ministry. It is precisely that service that we perform with and for one another that develops our maturity. We don’t grow in isolation. We need community! It’s within the community that our faith is formed. Our relationship with God is personal but it’s not private.

I have discovered that I have no problem reading my Bible and praying daily when I know a friend who is in need, or when I have a stimulating discussion about God’s Word, or hear a challenge to the faith that I’ve never heard before. These interactions with others is what fuels my relationship with God. It is my connection to people that reinforces my connection with God. If I hadn’t had that discussion I might not be interested to see what God has to say on the topic. If my friend weren’t in need, maybe I would be spending less time in prayer. You get the idea. Close, spiritual, open, and honest friendships within the family of faith are vital to my personal walk with God.

The Cost of Community

It’s hard to be unified with someone you only see once a week. Especially if you are staring at the back of his head from the pew behind him. In fact, it’s quite easy to have a disagreement with such a person and never resolve the issue because there’s no reason to resolve it. You can just stop talking. But, if you are serving together in ministry, if you are helping him and he is helping you grow stronger in faith, then you are unified. It is this unity that is so essential to the mission of the church. Without this unity that is brought on by serving together and growing together, the world is hopelessly lost. The world needs us to be the family they never had. They need us to love one another.

But we need one another too. We were created for community but that doesn’t mean it comes easy (or even naturally). Hebrews 10:24-25 says, “Let us be concerned about one another in order to promote love and good works, not staying away from our meetings, as some habitually do, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” We need to be together regularly if we are to show one another the care that is necessary to promote love and ministry. Do we want to be followers of Jesus? Do we want to make disciples, as He commanded us? Then we will regularly meet together because of our love and our concern for one another. I know I won’t grow in my relationship with God in isolation, but that means my brother or sister won’t either.

To be a disciple is to be in community. In order to make disciples, we need to encourage them to be in community. To change the world we need to invest in community. As the church, we are the final apologetic and it’s because of community. Jesus is only going to make one more appearance and that will be to call His Church home. Until then, we have a definite commission, and a definite course of action: As disciples, we are called to live in community with one another. This is achieved as we get together regularly and care for one another and serve together and grow together and show the world that we are disciples because of our love for one another. We need this! They need this! No longer can we simply come to a building once a week and expect that to be enough. In fact, we can’t merely come to a small group Bible study for a couple of hours per week and expect that to be enough. We are a family and a family is a huge time commitment. So let’s be disciples and not just complacent Christians. It’s messy and scary and you might just have to open up and share your life with someone, but don’t all the good things in life cost something?

Related Post: Naming Your Small Group Ministry ::  Subscribe ::

An Unnatural Life

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The Church is on the decline in Western society today. There is division in the Church in part due to a lack of diligence on the part of elders to ward off false teaching. Christians have become lazy in their thought and in their actions. The Church has ceased to have any major impact on the world.

There are thousands of root causes to the lack of influence possessed by the Church in the West. However, there is one cause that presents itself as a large heading under which many of those causes are categorized. The problem with the Church in the West is that we’ve forgotten that Christianity has no power apart from struggle. Indeed, many church goers are doing their best to avoid struggle and pain. They are hoping that the Church will give them their best life now. Surely, being a child of the King of Kings bears a certain pride and privilege. After all, we aren’t like those sinners are we?

Many of the qualities of the fruit of the Spirit require struggle before they can be obtained. It takes effort. I’ve grown up hearing people say, “Don’t pray for patience or you just might get what you asked for.” They glibly realize and articulate that if our desire is for patience, God just might test us in a difficult way. We just might have to undergo a beating before we get it right. When we finally learn a lesson of patience God might just make us go through it again so we don’t get caught up in pride – humility being another quality that takes a lot of “lessons” from God (of all things, don’t ask God for humility, right?).

Struggle is essential to the Christian life. God will not develop such things as discipline, humility, selfless love, peace, and patience in us without tests of our character. The fact that the Western Church today lacks these qualities is due to the fact that we run from trials and tests. Peter says, “You rejoice in this [inheritance], though now for a short time you have had to be distressed by various trials so that the genuineness of your faith – more valuable than gold, which perishes though refined by fire – may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 1:6-7) James even encourages us to “consider it joy…whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” (James 1:2-4) From these passages and others (not to mention the sufferings of Christ) we find the call to suffer. This call is referred to in several places as a refining process. The verse from 1 Peter even talks about being distressed by various trials even though we have a right to an amazing inheritance. 

Why do we go through this struggle? Purity, Genuineness, Sincerity, Experience, Endurance, Joy, Maturity, Perfection and God’s glory are but a few things that come to mind in light of the above verses and reflection on the life of Jesus. What happens when we don’t endure this struggle? Division, Greed, Selfishness, Laziness, Complacency, Unorthodoxy, Immorality, Jealousy, Strife, Envy, and Drunkenness all come to mind based on Galatians 5 and even a cursory glance at the status of the Western Church today. 

God has called us to something that is unnatural. God has called us to something that is impossible apart from Him. No wonder people give up so quickly when confronted with a difficult challenge. This is not natural! It’s not natural to discipline your body and your mind for God’s glory. There are natural laws that tell us the universe decays and winds down. Our spiritual life is under the same natural law that tends towards decay unless the Spirit of God energizes us and enables us to… to what? To have our best life now? To obtain all of the promises and inheritance of God? No, the Spirit energizes us to serve, to struggle, to discipline, to grow, to mature, to be patient, and to love. That doesn’t come naturally. God is the force that is at work helping us in our weakness to overcome various trials and tests.

The decline in the Church is due to natural rather than supernatural living. The Church is not in the habit of suffering and serving. We have traded in good habits for bad habits or simply stopped being spiritually disciplined all together. The Church is winding down due to a decreased desire for struggle and an increased desire for stuff. Ultimately, the Church will come to a complete stop if we don’t realize that we are called to live an unnatural life that is pleasing to God. It’s not natural to live by faith. It’s not natural to be self-controlled. It’s not natural to be patient. It’s not natural to love. But with God all things are possible. Let’s pray that the Church will receive the discipline of the Lord and become disciplined in their habits and actions.