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- Herausgeber: Crossway
- Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
- Sprache: Englisch
Community within the church today is hemorrhaging. Attention spans are dwindling, noise levels are increasing, and we can't seem to find time for real relationships. The answer to such social fragmentation can be found in small groups, and yet the majority of small groups—at least in the traditional sense—are often not the intentional, transformational community we really want and need. Somehow we need to get our groups off life support and into authentic community. Pastor Brad House helps us to re-imagine what gospel-centered community looks like and shares from his experience leading and reproducing healthy small groups. With wisdom and candor, House challenges us to think carefully about our own groups and to take steps toward cultivating communities that are able to glorify Jesus, bless one another, and participate in the mission of God.
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“Community will inspire your small group leaders to grow and maintain healthy, Christ-centered, and mission-minded groups. It will be a vital tool for your pastors, church leaders, and small group leaders.”
Craig Groeschel, Senior Pastor, LifeChurch.tv; author, WEIRD: Because Normal Isn’t Working
“Christianity is not for lone rangers. We are saved by Jesus to be a vital part of a team called the church—the body of Christ. Community is an excellent book that clearly, theologically, and practically helps us to see what it means to be a biblically functioning community on mission for Jesus. It answers the question ‘Why have community groups?’ and it provides a reproducible pattern as to how to implement them. Read it, then go and put its insights into practice.”
Daniel L. Akin, President, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary
“I sincerely believe this book has the power to redefine small group ministry. With brilliance Brad unearths the theology behind micro-Christian communities, clarifies the role and realities of the gospel, and vividly describes the system, infrastructure, and strategy that Mars Hill has (through trial and error) found to be most effective. If your goal is to create gospel-centered small groups that make Jesus known on the streets, cul-de-sacs, and neighborhoods where God placed you to do ministry, read this book, reflect on what it says, and then make it your guide for doing groups.”
Rick Howerton, author, Destination Community: Small-Group Ministry Manual
“In a rare combination, Brad House bridges the biblical and theological underpinnings of small groups and presents practical how-tos. He explains why smaller communities are imperative to the health of the individual and to the church, and then goes on to explain from bottom to top how to make it work in your church. Free of clichés and stereotypes, Brad takes a fresh look at an ancient concept!”
Bill Search, author, Simple Small Groups; Small Groups Pastor, Southeast Christian Church
“Brad provides a compelling vision and clear strategy for incarnational, missional group life in churches. It is shaped by Scripture, forged in the crucible of trial and error, supported by a common-sense structure, and transferable to any church willing to do the gutsy work of community building in a world that desperately needs it.”
Bill Donahue, founder, The Communitas Network; best-selling author, Leading Life-Changing Small Groups
Community: Taking Your Small Group Off Life Support
© 2011 by Brad House
Published by Crossway
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Wheaton, Illinois 60187
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.
Cover design: Patrick Mahoney of The Mahoney Design Team
Cover image: Patrick Mahoney
First printing 2011
Printed in the United States of America
Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture references marked NIV are from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
All emphases in Scripture have been added by the author.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4335-2306-9
ISBN-10: 1-4335-2306-X
PDF ISBN: 978-1-4335-2315-1
Mobipocket ISBN: 978-1-4335-2316-8
EPub ISBN: 978-1-4335-2317-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
House, Brad, 1976–
Community : taking your small group off life support / Brad House
1 online resource.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-1-4335-2306-9 (tp)
1. Church group work. 2. Small groups—Religious aspects—Christianity.
I. Title.
BV652.2.H68 2011
253'.7—dc22
2011014458
Crossway is a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
13LIST OF CHARTS AND DIAGRAMS
15DIAGNOSIS: AN INTRODUCTION
17PART ONE
THE FOUNDATION: BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LIFE
271 IMAGE
312 BODY
453 OWNERSHIP
65PART TWOHEALTH PLAN: REDEFINING COMMUNITY GROUPS834 COMMUNITY875 NEIGHBORHOOD1056 SPACES1277 RHYTHMS1478 STRUCTURE171PART THREETREATMENT: EFFECTING CHANGE IN YOUR GROUPS1919 REPENTANCE19310 BOOT CAMP20711 HISTORY223APPENDIX229GROUP PLANNEIGHBORHOOD PLAN231COMMUNITY GROUP REPLICATION PLAN232JOB DESCRIPTION: COMMUNITY GROUP LEADER234JOB DESCRIPTION: COMMUNITY GROUP COACH236JOB DESCRIPTION: HEAD COACH/COMMUNITY PASTOR238NOTES240GENERAL INDEX246SCRIPTURE INDEX250But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have recevied mercy.
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
1 Peter 2:9–12
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I could not write a book on community without thanking the community that inspired, encouraged, and assisted me in the conception and development of this work.
First, I want to thank my wife, Jill, and our three awesome kids. I love you guys, and your support and encouragement soothed the challenges that came from writing and kept me smiling throughout the process.
Likewise, I want to thank the elders of Mars Hill Church for your support and the opportunity to follow the call that God has placed on my life. Thank you for your unapologetic passion for Jesus, your unwavering submission to God’s Word, and your commitment to proclaiming the gospel. Specifically, I want to thank Mark Driscoll for encouraging me to write and for his leadership at Mars Hill.
A few men have been of personal encouragement to me as I was writing this book: Tim Beltz, Bill Clem, and Scott Thomas. Many others have encouraged me, but your words and confidence in me were instrumental.
Justin Holcomb, Matt Johnson, and Mike Wilkerson deserve appreciation for their theological review and comments that helped refine my thoughts and ideas.
That said, this book would have never seen the light of day without the army of God’s ambassadors, the community group leaders and coaches of Mars Hill Church. Thank you for your sacrifices and your passion for the gospel. Without you this book is just ideas. You have made it a reality.
DIAGNOSIS: AN INTRODUCTION
CRITICAL CONDITION
Paul begins his first letter to the Corinthian church with these words:
To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus.1
These words are amazing because the bulk of the letter that follows is Paul rebuking and correcting these “saints” for their sin, lack of knowledge, and, ultimately, their poor witness of the gospel through which they were saved. In this letter we can see Paul’s love and concern for the church, culminating in his charge to “be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.”2 He wants to see their lives transformed so that the work of the Lord can be accomplished. Paul is concerned with the legacy of the church in Corinth. He is not satisfied with them merely hearing or knowing the gospel. But it is not that Paul wants the church to do more. He wants them to be more. I am convinced that he is not disappointed with the church as much as he desires to see them live abundant lives that reflect what Jesus has already done.3
Fast-forward to the church today. What do you think Paul would write to us? Do you think if he sat in on a typical small group meeting he would be satisfied with the state of the church? Would he see us living as one body with each part working in harmony for the glory of God in all things?
Sadly, community within the church today is hemorrhaging. Giving in to the pressures of our culture to do more and fill every gap with entertainment has pushed community to the margins. We don’t have time to invest in people and relationships. Our attention spans have dwindled to two-minute sound bites on YouTube. We can only invest 140 characters in our relationships.
The answer to such social fragmentation can be found in small groups. Yet small groups, at least in the traditional way we envision them, are not solidifying community as we thought. As we will discuss in chapter 2, one study indicates that less than 18 percent of young evangelicals ages eighteen to twenty-three participate in a small group, Bible study, or prayer group that is sponsored by their local churches. This disconnection is concerning. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 12 that we need every member of the body to participate in the life of the church, and when one member suffers the whole body suffers. If that is the case, what happens when 82 percent of the body is completely missing?
Several years ago, a longtime leader came up to me one day and told me that he was done. He just couldn’t lead a group any longer. He said that it was draining him of energy and time and, in his words, “sucking the life out of [him].” Surprised, I asked him why it was so draining. He proceeded to describe a typical small group meeting: three hours, lots of preparations for hosting and the Bible study, awkward circles—you know the drill. I asked him what it would look like for that group to be life giving, and he painted a gripping picture of a Christ-centered community. When I asked him why he didn’t lead his group to that picture, he replied that he didn’t know he could.
If we are going to take our groups off life support, we are going to need permission to reimagine what gospel-centered community looks like. We will not change the preconceived view of groups by making participation a requirement for membership or by changing the names of our programs from “ministries” to “groups.” Small groups will thrive when they become the place where we experience life-giving transformation.
I, like Paul and many others, am concerned with the legacy of the church. That is why I wrote this book. The number of seats we fill will not determine the legacy of our churches. The depth to which the gospel penetrates those lives will determine our legacy. I have no qualms about large churches so long as they are committed to seeing the gospel transform the people in them. I want to see as many lives as possible saved and transformed by Jesus. My heart and conviction is that we can, and will, see lives transformed through authentic, gospel-centered community that is inspired by the power and wonder of God.
We cannot be content with the status quo of today’s church. Foundational to this work is the conviction that we were created for more, we have been redeemed for more, and we are empowered for more. This does not mean that we need to do more, but that we are more through the reconciling work of Jesus.
In this book, I join the chorus of leaders calling the sleeping church to wake up and “abound in the work of the Lord” because his grace has made it possible. I endeavor to affirm community as a gift of God’s grace for the purpose of exalting the Son and making him known. In other words, community is not about us; it is about God. Community is an instrument of worship, a weapon against sin, and a tool for evangelism—all for the exaltation of Jesus.
A lot must change for this to become reality. In his book Don’tWaste Your Life and his sermon series on the book of Romans, John Piper calls for having a wartime mentality when it comes to the Christian life.4 We are fighting for the glory of God and the souls of our neighbors, who are casualties in the fray. To paraphrase Don’t Waste Your Life, the church has been lulled into believing that we are in a time of peace. We often live lives of comfort, nonchalantly going about our business as if we are safe from the dangers of war. Yet Scripture tells us that Satan prowls around like a lion waiting to devour us.5 Peter declares that sin is waging war against our souls.6 Paul encourages us to fight the good fight and hold firmly to the faith as if someone were trying to rip it from us.7 This does not sound like peace. These verses and many others are brilliantly prophetic of the reality in which we live. Every day we see the casualties of this war. That is, if our eyes are open. The effects of sin are ravaging our friends and neighbors, not to mention the church itself. The question is, Are we going to fight?
As I survey the landscape of the church today, especially as I get behind the curtain and look at how people actually live their lives, I see a church that has little signs of life. We appear to be breathing as we gather for worship services and run our programs, but oftentimes we are merely surviving rather than living life abundantly. Jesus tells us that we must lose our lives if we want to save them. Life should be defined as the passionate pursuit of God. It should be marked by a hatred of sin in the believer’s life and an unquenchable desire for the fame of Jesus, taking every opportunity to share the gospel with a fallen world. If that is life, how are your vital signs? Can you find a pulse in the community of your church?
We have tried everything to prop up community within the church in hopes that it will spring back to life. We inject it with mission statements as if a shot of adrenaline will get things started. This leads to short bursts of excitement that fade just as quickly. We build programs to relieve the pressure and weight of being in community, hoping that if we can breathe for our people, then they will be more apt to participate. Unfortunately, the opposite happens, and they become dependent on feeding tubes and iron lungs.
In the end we may be able to sustain a pulse, but it is hard to call it life. It is artificial and plastic. People gather in small groups for discussions, but lives are not transformed by the gospel. Real life begets more life. It changes lives and transforms cities. I want us to have that kind of life. That is the life that is promised through Christ. That is the life that we receive from God. When Jesus said that he came that we might live life abundantly, this is what he was talking about—life that is empowered by the Spirit, exalts the Son, and glorifies the Father.
Artificial life is static, tethered to a system or program that sustains it. I want our churches to experience life off of the machines, life that is actively responding to the grace that has been poured out on us. It is my prayer that the ideas in this book will help you to breathe life back into community in a way that will not only rally the church to action, but also give your people a means of building a strategy to advance the kingdom in the context of where they live.
DEFINING TERMS
COMMUNITY GROUP
You will hear this term frequently. Community group refers to the scattered church grouping that may be known more commonly by the moniker small group. You may call yours care groups, missional communities, life groups, or fried chicken. The point is that we are generally talking about the same small unit of community within the greater body of the church. Now, although I suggest that the name is not the point, I should mention that nomenclature is significant. The name you choose could have an inspirational or limiting effect on the expression of that community. Care groups, for example, have a hard time engaging missionally in culture because when a person joins a care group, he or she expects to be cared for, not to be challenged to evangelize. On the other hand, missional communities will theoretically have the opposite dilemma. With that said, communitygroups is not the perfect name or the only name for such communities, but it has served us well at Mars Hill Church, and I will use it in the remainder of this book.
CHURCH
I will borrow the definition of church from Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears in Vintage Church:
The local church is a community of regenerated believers who confess Jesus Christ as Lord. In obedience to Scripture they organize under qualified leadership, gather regularly for preaching and worship, observe the biblical sacraments of baptism and Communion, are unified by the Spirit, are disciplined for holiness, and scatter to fulfill the Great Commandment and the Great Commission as missionaries to the world for God’s glory and their joy.8
Important in this definition is the truth that the church is a community of God’s people gathered for his mission. Therefore, when I speak of the church in the following chapters, I am referring to the body of Christ, not an organization, the leadership apart from the body, or an abstraction. We are talking about flesh and blood, you and me.
MISSION
Buzzword of buzzwords in the church today, mission is still too valuable a concept to abandon. I will, however, take the time to define a broad definition of it. Although there may be specific nuances of the mission to which God has called your church, it must include the making and maturing of disciples. That is to say that the mission is to glorify God by proclaiming the gospel of Jesus for the sake of gathering God’s people to him, and to teach and grow them in their knowledge and love of Christ. Jesus put it this way, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”9 Therefore, when I speak of owning or living out the mission, it should be understood in these terms.
HEALTH PLAN
It has become cliché for a book on community groups to state that it is not advocating a program, but I will say it anyway. I am not advocating a new program. What this book is about is shaking the Etch A Sketch of what community groups are and how they function in the church. It seeks to expand the idea of what community groups could accomplish for the kingdom of God. In doing this, I want to bring together theology and ministry philosophy with practical application and strategy that is worked out with effectiveness. To accomplish this, the book is separated into three sections.
THE FOUNDATION: BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LIFE
Life in our community groups starts with building on the right foundation. The first section seeks to define these foundational principles of community. Starting with a theological background of what community is and God’s purpose through it, we will address the motivation behind having community groups in your church and why they are essential. This section will address the purpose and need for community groups within the church and how they work together with other functions of the church, such as preaching and worship, to produce transformation in the lives of disciples. This section will also address the general state of our churches with regard to community and ownership within the body that is hamstringing the local church. We have been remiss, as the church, in creating systems and small group programs without anchoring them to the purposes revealed in Scripture. The purpose of this section is to challenge you to know why you are building a small group ministry before you ask the question of how.
HEALTH PLAN: REDEFINING COMMUNITY GROUPS
The second section applies the foundational principles from the first section to redefine what community is and how we employ it as a church. If we are going to rethink community, there is a great deal to blow up when it comes to the practical experience. Ironically, for “a holy nation, a people,” we are comically pathetic at community.10 Sadder still is the fact that the church’s offering of “real community,” which the world so desperately needs, is woefully short of the sales pitch. This section will address common pitfalls in the way we experience community that render it ineffective and obligatory rather than life giving. We will address strategic ways to organize and lead the church that encourage ownership, participation, and creativity. This section will also challenge us to think differently about community groups, including their function, rhythms, and engagement with culture. We will discuss ways in which your community groups can participate in the mission and work that God has ordained for your church.
TREATMENT: EFFECTING CHANGE IN YOUR GROUPS
Ever read the “how to draw” comic in the Sunday paper? In the first section you draw a circle. In the second section you draw two squares. Then in the last section you have a full-color drawing of the Mona Lisa. That is just plain mean. And it would be mean, or at least unfruitful, to paint a picture of a new way to experience community and not give you help in getting there. The last section will address how you get from where you are today to where you want to be in the future. We will take the time to address how change can occur on a large or small scale and give some practical examples of how you can inspire your church toward a new paradigm for community. This is not a plug-and-play way of living in community. It will require repentance, prayer, commitment, and patience. The result of living life in a way that glorifies Christ and encourages one another toward righteousness, though, will be worth it.
REDEFINED BY THE CROSS
Peter describes the church in this way:
You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.11
I want this for the church. This is who we are in Christ because of what Jesus has accomplished on the cross and through his resurrection. I want us to be a people who proclaim the excellencies of Jesus and whose conduct, through the transformation of the gospel, brings people to the cross. Imagine the effect that this would have on your city or town.
My good friend, Pastor Bill Clem, was preaching on community and summed up the conviction and passion I have for it. I was disappointed that he had coined the statement instead of me, but because we are in community, I like to think we said it. It went like this: “The world will not recover from the community of God’s people living lives to glorify Jesus.”12 This statement should change the way you look at community in your church. We have the means to proclaim the kingdom of God through the same means God has always used: his people. The question is, Are we willing to count the cost, repent, and receive the blessing of community?
I love Jesus and I love his church. My prayer is that this book will be a blessing to you and your church as you rethink what it means to live in community for the glory of God. I pray that community groups would be a source of soul-satisfying life in your church. I pray that the name of Jesus will be exalted in your city through the witness of the body of Christ. I pray your city would never recover.
PART ONE
THE FOUNDATION: BUILDING BLOCKS FOR LIFE
BUILDING THE FOUNDATION
The purpose of this section is to lay a foundation for building a life-giving and life-sustaining community within your church. Illustrating the need for a solid foundation, Jesus said,
Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.1
I want us to be a church that has the confidence of a house built on the rock. Jesus calls us to dig deep into his Word and lay a solid foundation of faithfulness. We are called to hear his words, be changed by them, and to live out of the convictions brought by the Holy Spirit. He is telling us to build our lives on the foundation of faith and obedience in him, through the living Word of Scripture. What an excellent foundation! Yet there are so many who build their foundations on sand rather than rock. When it comes to ministry, and community group ministries in particular, I see sloppy foundations. We can get so excited about a new innovative idea or opportunity to contextualize that we often skip this important step: build your foundation on the rock. Wind, rain, and floods will come in the form of sin, suffering, and tragedy. The question is, Will your community have the conviction to be the church when the flood comes, when Jake confesses to an addiction to porn, when Jane loses hope, when Tom loses his job?
A colleague relayed this story to me. An army friend of his was watching new recruits train on the shooting range when he noticed one young man standing at attention at the end of the range. He didn’t know why the soldier was there, but now that he thought about it, there was always a soldier at attention at the end of the shooting range. He approached the officer in charge and asked why. The answer was, “That is how we have always done it.” It was the protocol for firing on the range. Curious, his friend researched further. His findings were amusing. The protocol was written when officers rode horses. The young man at the end of the range was there to hold the horses’ bridles so they would not get spooked from the gunshots. Though the officers no longer rode horses, the protocol was never changed, thus the lone soldier simply standing at attention at the end of the range.
It seems silly, but how many of us have never even asked why we have community groups at our churches? Having small groups at your church because of tradition or because that is what “successful” churches do is not a particularly sturdy foundation. It is like having no foundation at all and makes it fairly difficult to inspire a commitment to community.
So, before you begin building (or remodeling), let me encourage you with this: be like the wise man. Ask why before you ask how. Build your foundation before you pick out the drapes. We are so often in a hurry to fix the lack of authentic community within the church that we start building without a foundation. Jesus tells us not to be fools who put all our effort into building a house, picking out just the right hardwoods to accent the light in the family room, when it will all be washed away in the first storm. The goal of this section, and chapter 1 in particular, is to clearly define the foundation upon which we want to build our community groups so that they will stand up to the many storms that will come blowing through.
1 IMAGE
THE GOAL
Let me begin by acknowledging that building gospel-saturated community is not an easy task. Cain made it clear that the effects of the fall would throw a wrench in community and relationships in general. Starting with a poor biblical foundation increases that labor significantly. Lifeless community begins when we don’t have a clear understanding of why we are in community in the first place. Yet, when we try to rejuvenate small groups, we generally ask how we can get more people in them, rather than addressing the question of why they exist. It is no surprise that we have a hard time attracting people to such a ministry.
Our goal here is bigger than increasing the number of groups we have in our churches. We want to reestablish the basis for community and why it is, and always has been, essential to the Christian life. Because community takes sacrifice and intentionality, our view of community must be bigger than a way to belong, making church feel smaller, or closing the back door of the church. We need to see the eternal purpose in order to inspire the devotion to community that we see in Acts 2.
A GOOD THING BROKEN
You see, the problem is deeper than the need to belong. On the cross, the community of the Trinity was momentarily broken.1 It was a picture of what sin always does to communities. Sin always separates what God joins together. This truth is seen in Adam’s response to the fall. The first thing that Adam and Eve did in response to their rebellion was hide from God.2 God intended for Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply, thereby building communities that would glorify him. Instead, because of indwelling sin, each community was more rebellious than the last, manifesting in relational evil against one another. That moment on the cross was a reflection of our sins of independence, selfishness, rivalry, jealousy, oppression, blame shifting, gossip, backbiting, neglect, isolation, pride, apathy, and every other perversion of grace that destroys community.
There are a couple of problems with a life that perverts grace in this way. First, it is a distorted picture of what God himself is like. A community of God’s people should reflect the nature of God. A community that is marked more by sin than by grace and claims to be a community formed by God misrepresents the Creator. Second, it denies grace by choosing an impoverished and deprived life. The community God creates is good because it reflects him; it is good for his people. Choosing a life outside of community with God denies this truth and is what got us in this mess in the first place.
Christians certainly aren’t the only ones to lament the fragmentation of society. Christian or not, we all have an intrinsic need for community. We all suffer from the isolation that sin breeds. Our neighbors are desperate to belong and be connected to a people. Some try to rebuild community through social action, campaigns, planning better cities, revitalizing neighborhood schools, or feeding the homeless. Others join gangs or social clubs, immerse themselves in virtual communities online, or hang out in coffee shops. These are all attempts to satisfy the need for community, but the problem is, none of these solutions address the real problem. They don’t address the cause of isolation.
The sin that disintegrates our communities and alienates us from one another is what put Jesus on the cross. He experienced the worst isolation and the worst evil—separation from God the Father. He was relationally severed from the eternal community of the Trinity. In trade, he gave us the greatest good, reconciliation to God and others, making community possible.
REBUILT ON THE CROSS
But let’s be honest, we have all fallen short of community that proclaims the truth of God’s goodness and grace, as we are often censored by fear or muzzled by sin. The cross, then, is central to building community within the church. If the church is going to offer an alternative to the brokenness and isolation in the world, then it must be a community that is transformed by the death and resurrection of Jesus.
In Ephesians 2:15b–22, we see the intentionality behind the cross in building (or rebuilding) the community of God:
That he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
In this text we see that we are a community of believers built on the cornerstone of Jesus. This work is completed and we need only to receive it. Through Christ we are fellow citizens and members of one household reconciled through the cross. We are saved to be a community, not a church of individuals. Dietrich Bonhoeffer sums it up this way: “Christian community means community through and in Jesus Christ.”3 It is through Christ that we have been reconciled to God and to one another. It is in Christ that we are united together like a family who shares the bloodline of Jesus. Jesus gives us the ability to experience life as God intended, in real community with him and one another. In a world searching for belonging, the cross is a beacon of hope. We belong to one another because we have been united in Christ.
The purpose of such community is to display the love of God for the world. We see this design just a few verses earlier in Ephesians 2 when Paul explains why we have been made alive in Christ. He says that it was “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.”4 This is the purpose of community. We have been saved so that we would express the gospel of Jesus Christ. Living together in community, reconciled and united by the cross, is a physical demonstration of the grace of God.
Community is for us a declaration of the overwhelming love of God, a tangible proclamation of the reconciling work of the cross. This is a truly compelling reason to build community groups within our churches. This is the bigger purpose that can inspire real community. Community groups are a living illustration of the gospel and its power to save. The world needs this, and so does your church.
CREATED FOR COMMUNITY
Understanding why community is essential to the life of the Christian and the proclamation of the gospel begins with understanding that we were created for community.
No one really debates the need for people to exist within community. It is not merely a Christian understanding; it is a human understanding. But belonging in and of itself will never be enough. Hanging the need for community on belonging is like hanging the need for water on thirst. The need for both is deeper. Thirst is a symptom of a deeper design—that your body was created to require water to survive. While we can technically survive without community, we don’t function properly without it. The deeper need for community is embedded in the very fabric of who we are; it is part of our design.
Ask people who they are and you will get plenty of different answers. We often define ourselves by what we do or what we have. This identity determines how we see ourselves and affects every choice we make. Distortions in our identity lead us to search for fulfillment in places other than God and to settle for less than what God intended. If our identity is wrapped up in being self-sufficient and autonomous, then we will likely never experience life-giving community. Start in the wrong place and it really doesn’t matter how good the map is.
Because Jesus has redeemed us, we can reset our identity to reside in the place God intended. When Jesus reconciled us to the Father, he established for us a renewed identity. This identity is a restoration of the image of God in which we were created.
In Genesis, at the pinnacle of creation, God creates mankind. The Bible records that God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.”5 When God says he is going to make man in his image, he informs us of our intended identity. We are image bearers of God. We exist as a living reflection of God, who exists in eternal community.6
In other words, God exists in an eternal relationship within the Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As a relational being, he creates us as relational beings to represent him to all of creation. God solidifies this point in the creation story of man in Genesis 2. He makes a point of expressing the incompleteness of man apart from community when he says, “It is not good that the man should be alone.”7 Scripture emphasizes that we cannot image God’s relational nature in isolation.
So what does this mean? This means that we were created for community. We were not created simply to appreciate it. We are incomplete without it.
Furthermore, by God’s grace, through the death and resurrection of Jesus, he made true community possible. Jesus restored the image of God that was marred by sin. Jesus made it possible for us to reflect the relational nature of God through life in community. When we live in community as a declaration of the gospel, we announce that Jesus has restored what sin had broken, and we experience life as God intended.
CREATED TO GLORIFY GOD
We have established that indeed we were created for community, but why? Being an image bearer is not only a description of who we are; it is also a description of why we are. We are created as a reflection of God (who we are) to reflect God to all of creation (why we are). The eternal purpose of mankind is to proclaim the glory of God to the world. The Westminster Shorter Catechism says as much when it declares that “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.”8 We do this as we receive, believe, and celebrate what has been done through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Reflecting the glory of God as an image bearer is to proclaim who God is through our lives. God reveals his nature to us in this way:
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.9
This is the nature of God that we are to reflect in Christ-centered community. A community of God should be merciful, gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. They are a people who address sin with compassion and patience and are quick to restore the repentant. Paul puts it this way in his letter to the Colossians:
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.10
This is a picture of a community reflecting the attributes of God because of what Jesus has done. Christ-centered community allows us to reflect the relational nature of God as well as his mercy and grace. It is a community that confronts sin and forgives one another, marked by compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. It is a community that seeks to live in peace with one another and reconcile broken relationships. That is dramatically different than the way the world handles conflict. When Christ reconciled us to one another on the cross, he made such a reflection possible.
Reflecting the image of God was a gift to mankind that was not shared with any other created being. Yet it is a gift that we forfeited through sin and rebellion. Jesus purchased and restores this precious gift through the cross. And when we then exalt Jesus, we glorify the Father and fulfill our call as image bearers to proclaim the greatness of God.
It is not enough to say that we should live out our faith in community because we are image bearers of the Trinitarian God. We are image bearers of a Trinitarian God who have been redeemed by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Our lives in community are a proclamation of who God is and what God has done through our Savior.
INSPIRED BY HIS GLORY
This understanding inspires a life and community devoted to Jesus. The motivation that will sustain such community is not the expectation to glorify God; it is the glory of God itself. In other words, you can’t just tell people that they should glorify God. We need to see the beauty, the splendor, and the magnificence of our God. A clear view of God puts life in perspective. It is simultaneously terrifying and motivating. When we see God clearly, we understand that there is nothing more important than worshiping him and lifting up his name.
Isaiah saw the glory of God in the temple and he was a mess.11
