It Takes a Community

It Takes a Community

“We cannot live for ourselves alone. Our lives are connected by a thousand invisible threads, and along these sympathetic fibers, our actions run as causes and returns to us as results.” Herman Melville

In Hillary Clinton’s bestseller, It Takes a Village, she passionately invites our society into the kind of village that enables children to grow into able, caring, resilient adults. I whole heartedly agree with her. Moreover, though, I want to apply this same kind of vision to City of Hope Church as it relates to growing each person into able, caring, resilient children of God.

As we begin to explore what this means for us, I want to consider two questions:

1. Have you ever wondered about the widespread problem of loneliness in our culture and how it might be tied to brokenness and ongoing sin?
   
2. Have you ever wondered why we can feel so disconnected even when we are surrounded by people and consumed with the busyness of work, family, and church commitments? Let’s see how this works out for us.

I heard a comment once that leads me to understand the heart of the above questions. The comment was from one who was in a small group, and even though he was active in this small group for a long time, he confessed that those in his small group did not one another all that well. How could that be, I thought, and then I was humbled when someone in my small group felt similarly and encouraged the group to go deeper with one another. Even those who have a heart for this can still be stuck in living independently from others and keep their masks on to prevent others from seeing the real them. But God’s work of personal transformation takes place within the community of God’s people. We can’t be people who say “You’ve made your bed, now lie in it” Or “You are on your own to get out of your mess.” Because as Christians we know that nothing can be further from the gospel. When Christ brings us into the family of God, no matter how much we messed up, we are never alone again. In How People Change, the authors discern, “yet many believers latch onto the hope of personal change while clinging to the individualism of our society. They have a “Jesus and me” mentality as they battle with sin and seek to become more like Christ. At first we might think, ‘Why not? After all, getting involved with people is complicated, messy and time-consuming. Who needs it? It is not very efficient when we have a lot of personal changing to do.’”

However, change is something God wants us to experience together. We are all part of a larger story of redemption that involves God’s people throughout the ages. God is about changing us together into the likeness of Christ. We can’t do it alone. We must not do it alone. In fact, God himself models to us community. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit live together in perfect fellowship, harmony, and unity. Again quoting from the authors of How People Change, “What each person of the Trinity is and does is always in union with the others. That even includes our salvation! At great personal cost, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit all played a part in bringing us into the family of God. Their perfect fellowship as the Trinity was disrupted so that we could be brought into fellowship with God.” Don’t miss what they just said—we are part of God’s community at the expense of disturbing God’s own community within the Trinity.

Read Ephesians 4:4-6 and you get a feel of the community that exists among the Godhead. Paul uses the word “one” seven times. The unity of God is meant to lead in his family into unity and intimacy. The benefit to us is that we are one body, we have one hope, one faith, one baptism and “one God who is over all and through all and in all.” Get the big idea: God is a community and this is stamped onto all he creates. Bask, enjoy, and experience this truth for you personally and us corporately!

Warmly,

Jeff