Day 18 of the 40 Days of Purpose

“Cultivating Community”

The word “community” is an interesting word. You can see in it the word, “commune,” which as a noun conjures the idea of a group gathered, and as a verb it carries the idea of communication, conversation, connecting, empathizing and feeling as one with one another. You can also easily see the word, “common,” which carries the idea of things shared or mutual with one another. And, of course, there is the word, “unity,” which is used of people in agreement or harmony with one another. Unity is not to be confused with “uniformity” which implies standardization or sameness, for unity can be held among people of varying views.

Although the church was bound in the unity of Christ, there was much diversity among its members, in fact the oneness of the church while being many members was an important emphasis of the teaching of the Apostle Paul while trying to deal with the Jew/Gentile conflicts in his letters (see Rom. 12 and 1 Cor. 12). Although the church started with 3000 people being baptized into Christ and they met together in large groups on occasion in the early days, the church expanded from Jerusalem as churches meeting together in smaller groups in homes. It is easy to imagine the diversity of these early Christians, not only from varying cultures from one individual to another, but also from one house church to another. It did not seem to be the emphasis of the Apostle Paul to try to make everyone alike, uniformity, but rather to help them realize that they could still be united in Christ while still being very different. Even in the difficult questions about eating of meats that had been sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians Chapters 8 through 10, Paul never encouraged either side to change their view, he encouraged them to be considerate of the other’s view and practice unity. Each house church became a community of believers that supported one another while understanding that there may be differing viewpoints, not only in another house church, but even among the members of their own house church. Those with similar views were community, but there was a sense of community with those with differing views, also, as long as they held in common their loyalty to Christ.

It would seem with this early history of church unity and the practice of the community of believers it would not be difficult for brothers and sisters today to get along with one another, even when they had differing views on matters of conscience. It would seem that we would see ourselves in fellowship with groups with whom we hold the common faith in Christ Jesus as our Lord even when we differed in our practice of that faith. It would also seem to be reasonable to expect that brothers and sisters in the same congregation could have multiple views and experiences in the practice of their faith and still be united in their common mission in the community around them. It seems that if we could better understand our role as a community within a community within a community, we would work together in fellowship and use our differences in unity to accomplish tremendous good in our world to the glory of God.