Community?
Real Community.
What does it mean to have it?
How do you know that you’ve got it when everything else in our experience isn’t it?
Is it like someone wanting the familiarity of weightlessness yet never being outside the bonds of gravity?
Or the rush of a freefall from 12,000 feet before the parachute opens with a snap, without boarding the plane.
I really think that community has escaped from the complex church that we now live in on Sunday mornings for an hour and seventeen minutes.
“Hey how are you doing?” they ask.
“Good!” we respond, lying all the way to our comfy, isolated, blue seat in the darkness.
We gather for that 1:17 on Sundays, realizing that we hardly know anyone that comes to The Cornerstone anymore. The people that we know must be going to the other service now, we rationalize.
If we had real community wouldn’t we know? Wouldn’t we care? Wouldn’t there be somebody close to us, who knows us and chooses to love us anyway?
I challenge you to look at the church in Acts and find any semblance to the one we experience today in North America.
Cuss me out and throw stuff at the monitor and then prove me wrong.
What about that First Church do you find in today’s Church?
What is missing?
What has been totally neglected/forgotten?
What has been added along the way?
What are you longing for in your life?
Could it be,
Community?
Thanks for letting me rant a bit, and talk to me will ya?
What does it mean to have it?
How do you know that you’ve got it when everything else in our experience isn’t it?
Is it like someone wanting the familiarity of weightlessness yet never being outside the bonds of gravity?
Or the rush of a freefall from 12,000 feet before the parachute opens with a snap, without boarding the plane.
I really think that community has escaped from the complex church that we now live in on Sunday mornings for an hour and seventeen minutes.
“Hey how are you doing?” they ask.
“Good!” we respond, lying all the way to our comfy, isolated, blue seat in the darkness.
We gather for that 1:17 on Sundays, realizing that we hardly know anyone that comes to The Cornerstone anymore. The people that we know must be going to the other service now, we rationalize.
If we had real community wouldn’t we know? Wouldn’t we care? Wouldn’t there be somebody close to us, who knows us and chooses to love us anyway?
I challenge you to look at the church in Acts and find any semblance to the one we experience today in North America.
Cuss me out and throw stuff at the monitor and then prove me wrong.
What about that First Church do you find in today’s Church?
What is missing?
What has been totally neglected/forgotten?
What has been added along the way?
What are you longing for in your life?
Could it be,
Community?
Thanks for letting me rant a bit, and talk to me will ya?
posted by C.M. Coon at Tuesday, February 01, 2005
2 Comments:
Dear Craig:
I agree that we seem to have lost a sense of cummunity in our mixed up world today. Too many people have lost their connection with the world and their need to have real relationships. Most people not only don't know their neighbors but they hardly know their own family members. People seem to come to church every week for their fix to get them through. Jesus said that we should love our neighbors as we love ourselves but we hardly venture out of doors. This is especially true in the winter in Michigan. The first century church had all things in common and were constantly breaking bread together. How often do we even go out to lunch with people after church on Sunday? We will never have an impact on the community around us if we continue to ignore it. In America we live this fast paced life that makes time for everything except community. We commune with the TV an average of 20 hrs a week that could be spent doing better things. I am just as guilty as anybody. We used to make more of an effort until our kids got older and we found other activities to fill in the time. Clearly we need to focus outward if we want to make a difference. People in our society hardly take the time to sit and listen to one another. Most people can hardly wait to get out the door of the church and back to the security of their easy chair. We need to slow down and smell the roses and get to know one another.
Respectfully Submitted,
Anonymous
Today church is more of a convenience than anything else. It is convenient to put in our weekly God time for the week at a building. It is convenient to only have to be around other people and religion once a week. It has a drive thru mentality.
Community, however, is everything but convenient. How convenient is being accountable to other searching Christians? How convenient is it to deal with other people's problems and to pray with them and for them? Its NOT! It takes too much time out of our lives and our day. Like Peter said, it is about selfishness!
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