Friday Night Study: Community (Task and Purpose)
Well we met again at Michaelle’s house for our Friday night study. We continued with the issue of community. What does it really look like? Can we really live out community in the context of our environment? I think sometimes we have lost what it means to live in real community with others. We have become so individualized in almost every aspect of life we push aside the very things we need most - others. When we read the story of the early Church, people shared everything in common. No one suffered to lack of need. There was no desire for personal gain or elitism or capitalistic corporate endeavors. We agreed that community is more than just a gathering of people unified less than one task or purpose but was more broad than we had expected. The foundation of community though is people. In a world where we have self-checkouts at the store and the creation of magazines like ‘Self,’ it is no wonder why we have become so individualistic.
We are called the body of Christ and yet I wonder if we truly desire to be apart of something greater than ourselves. Is it possible that we have the analogy all wrong? Perhaps we should be called, ‘the ear of Christ’ or ‘the eye of Christ.’ How ridiculous does that sound? As 1 Corinthians says, ‘If all were an eye, how would the body hear?’ No. We are called to be the body of Christ. It is emulated through out the Bible and imitated through out the life of Jesus, Himself. Perhaps that is a wake up call to those of us who like our ‘personal space.’ If community was so important to the believers of God during the events of the Bible, perhaps the necessity of community is even more important that we even thought. Just a few thoughts.
