Seeking to be an authentic community of disciples, becoming more like Jesus - walking in step with God, alongside each other and seeing lives transformed
Last week we began a weekly series of Friday posts exploring and unpacking our Vision here at CBC. If you miss any of the posts as we go through you can access them easily by clicking on the link to the relevant word above - or by clicking on the 'Vision' label which you will find at the bottom of this post.
This week I want to think about what it means to be 'community'.
If you were to do a search on the word 'community' in the NIV New Testament you would only get one hit (Acts 25:24) - but the Greek word used here occurs elsewhere in the NT but is translated variously as 'crowd', 'assembly', 'group' etc.
But within the NT account of the early church we certainly find the first Christians committed to meeting together for worship and fellowship - e.g. Acts 2:42-47. The writer to the Hebrews warns against no longer meeting together - for when we come together we are able to encourage each other and spur each other on (Hebrews 10:24-25). The language of the NT speaks of disciples as brothers and sisters - the language of family.
Jesus was accused of eating with the wrong kinds of people - and we find this practice - of eating together, and sharing hospitality - continues into the life of the early church. Jewish Christians share the hospitality of Gentile Christians - something that would not have happened without the transforming power of the Holy Spirit - and an outward sign of a deeper inner change.
Contrast, for example, Paul's comment in Acts 10:28, "you are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with Gentiles of visit them" with the invitation just 30 verses later, "Then they (a household of Gentiles) asked Peter to stay with them for a few days". This Peter presumably did because of the charge against him in Acts 11:3 "you went into the house of the uncircumcised and ate with them". Similarly Lydia sees the offering and acceptance of hospitality as an outworking and sign of her new faith (Acts 16:15).
Clearly the picture we find in the NT is of believers in Jesus who are sharing their lives together - not just 'in church' but also opening their homes to each other and eating together.
In our journey of discipleship we will all be at different points. There will be some people we learn from and there will be others we teach. We saw last week that life is often messy and therefore we need to be authentic and real. Young children learn by watching and copying - and it is the same with our faith. We learn by watching and copying - but we can only watch those who we share life with.
CBC is not a big church but it is probably too big for everyone to know everyone - it is certainly too big for everyone to know everyone really well. If you wanted to invite everyone round for Sunday lunch - either you would need a massive house or it will take you months and months and months. But you can know a few people really well - people who you can share your life with. For many of us this smaller group of individuals may be our home group, but there are also other groups who meet regularly (e.g. the musicians/singers, men's breakfast, the Bumps & Babes team). There will be things that are going on in your life that you don't want to share publicly but hopefully there will be one or two people that you can share with for support and prayer - and just to 'off load'.
But within any larger group of people there will be those who are not a part of any smaller group, those who are on the fringe for one reason or another - there will be those who choose to remain on the edge of what is happening. It is our vision that CBC will be a place where no one feels isolated, where everyone feels welcomed and a part of what is going on, everyone feels supported and is supporting others, a place where we do life together.
One of the challenges we face is how do we develop community when circumstances, shift working, family commitments etc mean that patterns of church attendance are changing. If you were to ask someone 15 years ago - regular church attendance meant Sunday morning, Sunday evening and midweek Bible study (as a minimum). Regular church attendance today (in terms of Sunday) can mean twice a month. So how do we ensure that we still share life together...?
