“Church planting is not simply a matter of getting a number of individuals saved; it is about the advance of God’s community in the earth. He wants a community, his city, his family in which he could dwell. Church planting is an extension of the community, not simply an exercise in multiplying the head count. Part of God’s purpose in saving us is to overcome our intense selfishness and isolation.” (bold added)
Amen.
It’s a shame on churches all across the country that our nation needs a credit card company to foster community. Still anything that does that is a good thing. Why not consider joining in
“I’m more and more persuaded as I study Scripture that my life is intended by God to be a community project. We were designed to live in community – first, community with God and second, community with other people. We were formed to be social beings, and all of the places where I need to grow and change – the development of my gifts, my understanding, my wisdom – doesn’t happen individually. It happens in community. In addition, one of God’s best tools for revealing and changing hearts is marriage. So it’s [through community, marriage and family] that I actually become more of what God has designed me to be. You could argue that, in God’s design, the fundamental social building block of human culture is marriage. Isn’t it interesting that the marriage relationship is the picture that God uses of His relationship to us?”
So a question. What techniques, ideas, hints and tips do you have for reading and managing your blog reading list to stop it becoming unmanageable? And as I’m curious to know, my new poll will be on this question: How many blogs do you regularly read? (I’m currently subscribing to 48!!!)
A new blog I’ve added and trying out is Life Together and two posts that immediately caught my eye was The Recession – A revealer of true community and Home is a Small Group for Mission
This stood out “researchers suggest that our low ‘trust and belonging’ score may be ‘the result of the development of a highly individualistic culture in
the UK’. Basically, the suggestion is that we are in danger of becoming the most selfish nation in Europe.”
It goes back to the basic claim that money is important. The lack of it will make you feel unhappy, but also that money is not the most important thing because once you reach a certain level of income, there are a little gains in happiness for trying to increase your income beyond that point. Richer does not always mean happier.
This is clearly not ingrained into our national pysche because when the economy is booming we obsess over property and the stuff that fills the properties and when it busts we obsess over the depth, length and breadth of the recession. It seems if your British then money still equals happiness.
At root this is a sign of our spiritual impoverishment, we lack the spiritual resources to see credible alternatives and the failure for this, I would argue, lies squarely with the Christian church. We may be different but not nearly or clearly different enough. We must make it an urgent task to recreate a community life that is a clear witness to the world that we don’t worship at the altar of the gods of stuff.
“When someone stands up and advocates for something that is not your passion. How do you respond? Are you frustrated that your thing isn’t being spoken about? Or, do you realize that you are lucky they are advocating for that idea. Of course, at the same time they are lucky you are advocating for your idea.That’s the beauty of community.
Each person brings their gifting and passion to make the community more whole.”
Read the whole thing here
“Congregations want and need leaders who are open, vulnerable and authentic. People who know them and are known by them. If the church is the community of God’s people, there can be no stand-offishness from the leaders, no professional detachment. They have to be community people to the core if they are to build God’s communities of purpose for others.”
Read the whole thing here
It’s an issue I find challenging – getting the balance right between on the one hand getting the work done, meeting non-Christians, spending time with my family and spending relational time with family in the church as well as friends outside it. It’s hard not to think you’re building shallow not deep.
“I do not want to accommodate the consumer society – I want to change it. I want to live differently, and to raise my children to live differently as well. I will not conform to this. I will find a better way to live – one more in harmony with the teaching of Jesus – principles of justice, mercy, righteousness, truthfulness, generosity, sacrifice and mutuality.”
and
“I look at some of the excellent examples that have found a different way to live, such as The Simple Way in Philadelphia, USA and the Northumbria Community in the UK and rejoice in what they do. But I want something that works here and now in Shrewsbury, Shopshire, with the people I know. I want something that I can do now”
Read the whole thing here and join in the conversation
It was something I ‘felt’ to be true but hadn’t done the research. Fortunately for me the BBC has come to my rescue with this article headlined ‘Life in UK has become lonelier’
It begins by saying ‘community life has substantially weakened over the past 30 years’ and the reasons are: “Increased wealth and improved access to transport has made it easier for people to move for work, for retirement, for schools, for a new life. The decline in marriage, increasing divorce, immigration and a growing student population are also said to be contributory factors.”
So I wasn’t too far off the mark. It’s a legitimate question to ask over the past 30 years as our society has fragmented where has the church been? So, comments please on what your church (if you go to one) or community group is doing to combat loneliness and isolation. What is being done?
Some of you will read that post headline and think ‘Doh, talk about stating the obvious’. Here’s the thing though, apparently pubs up and down the country are closing, at the rate of 36 a week.
Not because we’re drinking less, because we’re actually drinking more. We’re just drinking more at home and watching TV. Forget what this says about our nations physical health but also what it might say about any sense of community. It’s dying.
Anyway, a group of our nations lawmakers are very upset about this and a House of Commons Select Committee have been saying some very strong things about the importance of the great British pub.
“The government needs to wake up to the importance of the pub,” says Liberal Democrat MP Greg Mulholland. “Instead of regarding them as businesses which can go to the wall we need to look at changing planning law to enshrine the pub. Whenever a pub is proposed to go to a different use, be closed or demolished, the local community needs to be consulted. At the end of the day, who owns the pub? Legally it’s the pub operating company or the landlord. But morally, surely, a community, a village owns a pub that’s been there for hundreds of years.”
I can’t recall anyone making such a fuss about churches that close, can you? Maybe it’s because like the pub they’ve lost connection with the community and the community no longer cares.
In a statement the owners of a recently closed pub said, “Traditional rural pubs that are at the heart of their communities, with good, motivated licensees satisfying their customers’ needs, will not only survive, but thrive.” – Could the same be said for churches?
Perhaps more importantly, why is there a sense that community is often missing from modern life? Plenty of observers have noted how increasingly mobile people have become as education, work and relationships pushes and pulls them around the country. Less people live in the town where they grew up than ever before and people are constantly moving. Add that to the fact that people are often eager to improve the quality of their dwelling that increases our mobility. Each year a few doors from where you live a stranger will move in, if you don’t say hello sooner or later you’ll know no-one who lives near you.
Add that to an increasing mobility in the workplace and the almost total erosion of job security that means many people work in a place they care nothing about with people they care nothing about and you’re adding a potent ingredient into a recipe of isolation.
Lastly, there is the ascendancy of the TV. We are now fully entertained in the comfort of our own homes. When we come home tired from work we care little about and we don’t know our neighbours or care for our colleagues what incentive is there to leave the safety and security that is your new sofa? And while you’re being amused to death with mindless soaps and informed about places you’ll never see, you’re also being scared and frightened about ‘them’. The world is full of evil people – child abusers, kidnappers, identity thieves, drunken louts on the weekend and gangs of teenagers for the weekdays – added to your drug addicts, dealers, and usual mix of car thieves and burglars. The world is also full of unseen dangers – germs on everything, diseases to be scared of and as we’re no longer in contact with our spiritual sides – what is more frightening than death? So insure it, sterilise it, protect it and stay away from everyone else. Don’t let your children play outside.
But the problem goes deeper than statistics and demographics it goes to the heart. We’ve bought into a dream that has ‘me’ as the hero. I’m the centre of the story and everyone else is an ‘extra’, if the hero isn’t happy – he can change the sidekick, dump the gang, find a new country, move to a new town, buy a new look and get some new gadgets. Everything is up for grabs as long as the hero is happy. Hmm. No place for loyalty, faithfulness, integrity, contentment, commitment in this story.
Consumerism has a lover called individualism and together they spin a web of lies that pulls us away not towards other people. Community is part of the antidote of kingdom. As we become part of a kingdom that seeks to bring reconciliation to the WHOLE world, we are pulled towards people, called to meet them, get to know them, love them, fight with them and make up again with them. Called to spend time with them and share our lives with them. As we do that we open ourselves up to correction, encouragement, generosity, compassion and true friendship. We can live differently and live deeply.
Community is without question the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do – building a church is easier, getting my quiet times in order is easier, breaking stubborn habits is nothing but building genuine community has been genuinely difficult. This makes me think it’s spiritual warfare but also that it means the treasure that comes when you get glimpses of it – as unexpected gifts are given, when people pull round to offer unconditional and extravagant love is beyond comparison. The kingdom is not a collection of individuals but a community of people. Be a part of it.
“Christianity entered history as a new social order, or rather a new social dimension. From the very beginning Christianity was not primarily a ‘doctrine’ but exactly a ‘community’. There was not only a ‘Message’ to be proclaimed and delivered, and a ‘Good News’ to be declared. There was precisely a New Community, distinct and peculiar, in the process of growth and formation, to which members were called and recruited. Indeed, ‘fellowship’ was the basic category of Christian existence.”
- Georges Florovsky, ‘Empire and Desert: Antinomies of Christian History’
Taken from Jesus for President by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haws, p226
We also experienced God’s presence as we worshipped Him, we were built up as people encouraged one another and worked out what it means to follow Christ in a difficult world. It was a good day. We were challenged and encouraged to be outward looking in our prayers, because if life really is this good with God, how can we keep it to ourselves?
All this is true, and I delight in it. At the same time, I’m stirred to continue to seek to be part of a community that ‘outclasses’ society in the quality of its life. One that respects creation, that lives on what it needs rather than living for its wants. One where relationships are built to last, not last until a better offer comes along (see Matt Hosier’s blog for thoughts on marriage), one where the poor and needy of the world find acceptance, love and compassion – as well as a nice cup of tea! One where we share, care and pray for each other. There is so much more to being the church and every additional angle challenges the poverty of communal life in our nation. I love the fact that I worship a God who changes us from the inside out, but never leaves the outside unchanged. There really is nothing like the church.
“Even in this new situation all the members of the community are given their special place; this is no longer the place, however, in which they can most successfully promote themselves, but the place where they can best carry out their service. In a Christian community, everything depends on whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. The chain is unbreakable only when even the smallest link holds tightly with the others. A community which permits within itself members who do nothing will be destroyed by them. Thus it is a good idea that all members receive a definite task to perform for the community, so that they may know in times of doubt that they too are not useless and incapable of doing anything. Every Christian community must know that not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of the community.” – Life Together, 95-96
But I left with the feeling that despite my best efforts, the message I unwittingly communicated was “DO MORE” when I was passionately hoping to communicate “LOVE MORE”. Sometimes in order to love more we need to DO less.
Fortunately, as the main speaker in our church I have another opportunity to correct this misconception and I’ll be attempting to unpack what it might look like to follow Christi in a busy, harried and hassled world with a talk titled, “Generous Living”.
What this means is be willing to open up our lives to the presence of another. Most of us open up to people we love, partners, children, close friends – our nearest and dearest. Christ calls us to love our enemies and to head to the byways and alleys of our world to seek out the crippled and the lame and invite them too the banquet of the king. Where I live those translate into single mums abandoned by yet another responsibility averse male, teenagers and young people who literally have no ambition, no drive, no aim in life other than to claim dole and then drink it and many others. Loving those people isn’t easy, extra grace is required and I don’t think I can do it on my own.
Yet to be able to even try, I need to make room first of all in my heart and then in my diary. If there’s no space to be with someone then there’s no way to love them. Programmes can help but they can’t hug. Sometimes those ‘others’ are in a foreign land but they hold our hearts, babies with HIV, the orphans and widows of this world. Sometimes those others are across the street.
Generous living makes room to include others into our lives, to do what we are doing, be it washing the car, walking the dog or watching a film. There may not be room for everyone person in your life, which is why it takes a community to reach a community but if there’s not room for the least of these is there really room for Jesus?
Simplicity can seem a mile away in the aftermath of the Christmas season when our accumulation of stuff as well as debt has gone steeply up.
Simplicity, first of all though is not the order of our lives but the order of our hearts. It comes from first of all knowing what we are living for, and as a Christian that means primarily following Christ with our eyes firmly fixed on living out the two great commandments to ‘Love God’ and ‘love neighbour’. This is what gives me my primary purpose and calling as a Christian. It is a universal, for whatever else may change the requirement to do these two things does not.
I may worry or wonder about many other things that I might do with my life or time or energy or resources but instead I should give more of all the above to living out these two crystal clear things that Jesus gave us to do. When it comes to following Christ the requirement is simplicity itself for on these two things, everything else hangs.
This simplicity of heart can bring simplicity of thinking and focus if we let it, setting a framework of freedom for our lives and releasing us to fulfil our potential.
It would seem strange then if that simplicity didn’t filter on down to the level of our possessions, if we are indeed giving ourselves to love god and loving people, seeing us building community and sharing in authentic mission as the people of God, taking the opportunity to be generous to our brothers and sisters and to those in need both near and far away that it that it didn’t result in a reduction of stuff and a greater simplicity in our lives.
These aims go hand in hand, if I reduce the amount of things I need and stuff I want my opportunity to be generous increases, if my heart yearns for the opportunity to give more than I am currently I may think about ‘selling what I have and giving to the poor.’ Listening to the God I love with all that I am may well lead to similar things happening.
In the end, I am sated and bloated by possessions, I buy them, insure them, protect them, care for them and repair them, then I throw them away and replace or upgrade them. All around me are hearts and souls alone, waiting for someone to protect, heal, and provide care for them. One will reap rewards into future generations and the other will disappear about roughly the same time I do. So why is something so simple, so hard to do?
I get sent so many books and there are literally hundreds on my shelves that I want to read but haven’t yet got to, the pressure of the backlog sometimes kills the joy of reading. As a result I sometimes just pick the shortest book I can find, so I can read it quick and move on to the next one. The aim being to reduce the pile of unread books not enjoy the experience of reading. This book was one such choice.
Bonhoeffer is a theological hero of mine, his theology, his bravery, his involvement in the pains of his people and his experience of community all drew me to him. In prison he wrote among other things a number of excellent poems and this coffee table gift book reflects on just one: ‘Who Am I?’ Part Psalm, part deep soul searching it provides worthy material for meditation and self-reflection. Here’s a line that struck me about community:
It is infinitely easier to suffer in community than alone
Perhaps as our society becomes increasingly fragmented and isolated so our ability to handle suffering is diminished.
Total Church is a provocative book and there’s much to commend it. There is much in common with the values of Newfrontiers the church family I belong to. This is a gospel centred book from The Crowded House church in Sheffield. They believe in extending the kingdom through church planting. They believe in caring for the poor and including them into the gospel community and in multi generational churches. They believe in the sufficiency of the gospel to bring people to maturity.
Interestingly they believe in reshaping the life of church around homes and building community rather than another building project. And as a church group that has come out of the conservative evangelical mould there is no place for the supernatural gifts of the Holy Spirit or signs and wonders so there are a few differences. But their central thesis that teaching, discipleship, pastoral care, evangelism and involvement in society is best done by a local church that understands community is spot on. We don’t just share knowledge we share our lives, we share ourselves. This is well worth reading to reshape church away from meetings and programme towards community and mission.
“We often surround ourselves with the people we most want to live with, thus forming a club or clique, not a community. Anyone can form a club; it takes grace, shared vision, and hard work to form a community.”
I thought it would be helpful (to me, if no one else) to explore them in turn and see how it develops. Starting with the one that I think is the most important – Authentic Mission.
The church is a missional movement and the disciples were called to repeat the process that Jesus began with them, teaching them to worship, obey, love and follow God in a new way. This life of loving God and loving neighbour knew no boundaries and would stretch to all the corners of the earth. The church is both the herald of good news but also the embodiment of good news. It’s something we live and something we are.
I not only tell people I have been saved by grace but my life should now be a visible demonstration of the difference (I’m feeling a bit challenged right now). The church proclaims the love and mercy of God in Jesus Christ but also lives it out, we are the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Our deeds are meant to be seen and the effects are meant to be real and to be felt. There’s probably not too much argument about this until you get down to the details.
For me authentic mission is not always the same as personal evangelism. Authentic mission includes telling my friends about Jesus but mission goes so much further to include loving broken people, listening to hurting people, talking to wounded people. It includes living the hope we have of a creation liberated from its bondage to decay and doing our best to live the difference. To be honest looking at most churches wouldn’t make me want to go to heaven unless it was a means of escape from church!
I don’t mean that church should be like heaven but it should give me a glimpse, a taste, a hope. If I’m being transformed – that should be noticeable, and in the lives of those I lead. If I’m the temple of the Holy Spirit that shouldn’t be something you miss too easily. If my church is full of the love of God and for love of each other that should be something incredibly attractive.
Authentic mission then not only proclaims love of God and love of neighbour but incarnates it and makes it real for people. A community on a mission together may have targets and goals and other grand dreams but it must be a place that grows in love and therefore I can’t do that on my own. I can’t do authentic mission on my own. I need people around me to spur me on towards love and good deeds, I need people to help me discover the teachings of Jesus and apply them as we were commanded to do, I need people to help me love people, to help me make disciples. I NEED the body of Christ, I depend on it, I can’t function well without it.
Authentic mission is about loving God with each other, loving one another and loving the lost together. Right?
Secondly, this feeds into another train of thought that has been swirling around for a while, which is ‘what does it mean to be a disciple?’ The great commission has always struck me, and even though I’m a church planter (I have the perfect personality for that according to the tests Matt Hosier blogs about) it’s the making disciples and teaching them to obey Jesus’ commands that interests me.
I’ve begun to study and re-read the Gospels looking for the commands of Jesus (I know there are lists on the tinternet but that makes me lazy and I miss context and the opportunity to read afresh) and noting them. Then I’ll look for how they help in the development of disciples. I’ll blog it, I’m sure.
Anyway going back to where I started, it seems to me that a fundamental definition of a disciple could be given as ‘one growing in love of Jesus and of people.’
Growing is important because it implies following, movement, progress, learning, development and maturity. Love because, well that one should be self explanatory. Jesus rather than God because today God can be too vague, so much of anything it becomes nothing. Jesus is uniquely Christian, trinitarian, and He is after all who we are following. People because well that what’s Jesus said the other great command was.
Anyway loving people & loving church surely means a growing openness to some form of community, of deeper relationships however that is expressed. At the heart of community there has to be relationship and love otherwise it becomes law or cause – both powerful but in my not very humble opinion not enough to succeed.
The problem with that of course is that I remain resolutely materialistic. My eyes remain fixed on earthly things, I’m worried about my stuff. I’m worried that someone will break my stuff, not give me my stuff back, not share with me their stuff (that I may want), that I’ll pay more than they will. Deep down I’m just trading some of what I don’t use a lot to gain access to more stuff. Deep down I’m not really as free from the love of possessions as I would like.
If a friend I really care about is in need I’ll do what I can and not a minimum but to a maximum. For other people I tend to share to the minimum. What’s the least I can manage? The problem is that I’ve not enough love for those outside my circle of friends.
How different was the early church? Their cozy group of close knit friends, with the same language, values, beliefs and backgrounds was shattered on the day of Pentecost when 3000 strangers from all over the middle east speaking a dozen languages were suddenly added to their group. Yet people soon began selling what they had to provide for their new members of their family. Not because they had great rules but because they had great love.
So, perhaps what I need is a more generous, big hearted love for the people of God and out of the overflow of my love comes my willingness to share because the treasure I seek cannot be found on earth, cannot be bought, cannot be traded, cannot be sold. “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”.
As a result there is a revision of how close you need to live to someone else to effectively share…10 minutes walk being considered too far and instead bringing that down to 2 minutes. Thoughts?
Then there are some suggestions on areas to extend what could be shared. I have some questions that are forming and I’m curious to get your thoughts. Assume for the moment that the principle is sound and the Biblical basis sure, what would wise guidelines be?
Too many laws and it becomes a burden that is heavy to bear, not enough and nothing changes or endless squabbling ensues. So for example, 5 families collectively share one lawnmower, so 4 families avoid the expense of a purchase, what do they do? Give some money away? If so how much? Give some money to the family that has the lawnmower? Should this even be regulated or watched or should it be left to each family to decide what to share and not to share and what to give and what not to give?
The end goal in my mind at the moment is threefold. Greater Simplicity - to find greater contentment in something other than stuff, to release time for relationships and to lead to Increased generosity. Giving more for mission and mercy seems to me to be the best way of investing my money. Thirdly Authentic Mission. I want to reach out to my community as a community and not just as an individual, for the Gospel to be visible as well as audible.
If moving to this common middle ground helps achieve that, then it’s worth trying don’t you think?
So just like politicians we’re searching for the popular middle ground. What does that look like? How do you move away from the strongly individualistic (where we are right now) and yet avoid the one big house and some chickens scenario?
That’s as far as I’ve got. What have I got wrong or what would you add in?
One of the interesting things I’ve learnt was that after his conversion Augustine immediately began experimenting with community. First in Italy in a villa by Lake Como (very nice) and then he insisted on a monastery community when forced into the priesthood at Hippo, north Africa.
His preference was for a scholarly community, but what is interesting to me is that there seems to be something about a shared life together that is very attractive and constant throughout the history of Christianity. So here’s my question what other greats of our faith have been drawn to community over the centuries?
I’ll add Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the 20th Century, to Augustine, to kick us off. Any others?
I believe Jesus when he said 'life does not consist in the abundance of our possessions'. I believe he offers something better. This blog is mostly about that search.
I'm also a husband, a father, church planter, keen runner, reader, and motorcyclist. These and a few other things make guest appearances from time to time.
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