Why Community?

Many years ago, when my boys were still boys, I was speaking to the mother of another one of the youth in our church. I would guess she was part of the church because her son was part of the youth group and that she and her husband attended because a neighbor had invited them. She said to me that she felt closer to God in her backyard, being part of nature, than in worship.

I don't think that is a unique experience - I think many of us have felt the presence of God in God's creation. Let's set aside my opinion that our church's traditional style of worship wasn't her cup of tea, and just think about corporate vs individual means of grace.

Laceye Warner, in the book All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, writes this:

The vitality of the early Methodist renewal movement depended on small group gatherings.  John consistently urged that authentic spiritual formation could not take place 'without society, without living and conversing with [others].'"

I think this statement makes sense when one considers the emphasis the Wesleys placed on accountability groups. These small group gatherings were the heart of the spiritual growth Wesley envisioned for those who participated in his movement.

What is the benefit of a communal experience of the means of grace (according to me)?

• Wesley would say to encourage nurture and accountability. While we can practice self-discipline, we are prone to self-justification of our actions, aren't we? At least I am. Having others to encourage and provide truth is helpful.
• When we are part of community, we have opportunities for service. We care for each other, and together, we can reach out beyond ourselves. On our own, who do we love? Who do we care for?
• We are more - synergistically - when we are together than when we are alone. The church - our community - is more than the some of the members.
• When we say, "I'll just sit here in my backyard to worship," we selfishly think that God's desire for our worship is only that we are individually edified. What do we bring to worship than can build up others? What do we bring to church that can help others to grow?
• What about when we are grieving, lost, alone, unwell? Community can support us. And when others need help? Sitting in our backyard doesn't help anyone.
• What about stewardship? What about giving of our gifts and talents? Who do we give them to in the backyard?
• In isolation, our experience of God is one-sided, flat - created only from our own perceptions of God. In community, our understanding of God is broadened, strengthened, because other voices and experiences contribute to it.

Please don't misunderstand me. I think times alone, times in nature, are wonderful gifts of grace. I just think they can't be everything and all. We are called to be in community, called to be of service to each other and to those around us. God is surrounding us, entering the spaces between us. We need each other.

Prayers

I was involved in a Diversity Summit with our Annual conference. As part of it, we shared worship. The music was global - from different parts of the world and sung in different languages (including but not limited to English). The scripture was read in English, Spanish and Korean. It was a great experience.

During the last worship service of the conference, we came to the point in the Communion Liturgy where it was time to pray the Lord's Prayer. We were told to pray the prayer the way to were comfortable praying it. There was no concern that we all say debts and debtors or trespasses and trespassers. We could have prayed it with whatever words and language was comfortable. All was acceptable.

We weren't exactly in unison, but that was OK. We were praying with one mind and one heart to the one God we worship. 

I remember a few years ago, our older son went to a Global Young Adults gathering in Germany. At one point, all those present sang "How Great Thou Art" in their own language. He said it was amazing. I'm sure it was.

We don't have to agree to worship the same God. Unison doesn't require the same thoughts. God is who unifies us.

High Notes of Eternity

I attended a leadership conference this weekend. As part of one of the worship services, all 700 of us sang the Lord's prayer together.  Near the end, at the "and the glory, forever," the tune went higher than I can reach with me voice, so I stopped singing.  I listened for a moment to those whose voice can reach those notes.  And the prayer continued.

I can't reach the high notes of eternity by myself. None of us can.  But in community, as voices joined together, we come closer.  We can come closer together because God is working through us.

We try to work alone.  Or at least, I do.  Do you? Do you struggle on and on alone because you think you can get it done?  Be good enough at it to not need help?  A soloist who has the voice range can hit that note, but there was something stunningly beautiful about us all singing it together.  And together, if all of us couldn't sing all the notes, all of us participated in the prayer, buoyed along by each other.

Community is a God-given gift.

Community

This really isn't a great picture -- in fact it is probably a less than mediocre image.  I took it because as I was watching the ducks congregate in the creek that runs through our local city park, I was thinking about community.

Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.  Galatians 6:2

Ducks know it.  They gather together into community.  I don't know what a group of ducks is called -- a flock? -- but they come together in the park for the betterment of all.

We, too are created to be in community.  Steve rode in a bicycle ride from Huntington, WV to Washington, DC.  It was all about community.  From the pace lines to the fund raising to the cause for which they raised funds to the support vehicles, it is all about community.

We are created by God to be in community.  It is in helping others that we grow.  It is in allowing others to help us that we strengthen them.  It sounds trite, but together we can do more than we ever dreamed of apart from each other.

Go forth and find your duck group, if you haven't already.

By the way, a group of ducks is called a raft.  A group of flying ducks is a team and a group of ducks on the water is a paddling.  What amazing stuff you can find on the internet.  I leave it up to you to determine its veracity.

Prayer: Connections

Myrtle Beach from a helicopter

Someone I know posted the following on Facebook:

I've been thinking about the plurality of the Lord's Prayer today - specifically the use of the word "us" instead of "I."  I want to be just as connected and concerned about the people around me as I am for myself  So, my prayer today is that we all receive forgiveness, that we all find deliverance and that no one goes without their daily bread.  Amen.  Hattip to Josh Webb

Think about that, and think about the Lord's Prayer and how that outlook changes it:

• Our Father, who art in heaven...Not just my Father, but the Father of us all -- all of us children of God, brothers and sisters.
• Hallowed be thy name.  Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...  God's will for all of us, not just me.
• Give us this day, our daily bread...  As Josh says, may no one go without food.  That might motivate me to provide bread to someone else, even at the expense of my own "share."  And it eliminates the thought that I have a "right" to a portion -- all must be fed.  
• Forgive our trespasses as we forgive those who have trespassed against us...  We're all in this "sin state" together.  Forgive us all, and help us to forgive each other.  
• Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil...We travel together down this road.  May God guide us all to the himself, and maybe we will realize that while one of us remains away from God, all of us are impacted.  Deliver us all from evil, O God.
• For thine in the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever.  Amen.

Community seen in music

I was part of a team meeting for an Emmaus walk today. Part of the agenda was singing. The music team decided to end this section of the agenda with the song Sanctuary, but the keyboardist didn't have the music for it. She said, "Wait just a minute." I don't know what to call what she did, but she fiddled around for just a minute on the keyboard, playing chords, and then said, "OK," while the song leader nodded. Somehow, she had discovered the song on her keyboard (no written music), and she started playing it.

So we sang it through once, and then, at a whisper from the song leader, the keyboardist played the beginning chords of the song as we started through it again, and then she stopped, while we sang a cappella.

It was beautiful, the voices combining together, singing as one.

As I think about it, I think the experience says something about community.

1. One or two people with talents and gifts, when they share them, can lead the community to do something we could never have done without their gifts.
2. As the keyboardist dropped out, she humbled herself to the leadership of the song leader. In her silence on her instrument, she allowed beauty to spring forth without her. There are times when our silence -- our withdrawal -- is what the community needs
3. As a community, we can create something beautiful just by listening to each other -- the timing, the notes -- we just followed each other.
4. Together we can create worship and praise of God.
   
   
   

Community Spirit

I like to drive. I like the freedom of being able to jump in the car and go where I want to go.

I don't like snow. I don't like that it hampers my ability to go where I want to go or need to go. We live on a hill, and that downhill drive just further complicates travel in bad weather.

Last night, as it rained and froze, I could hear the world popping and cracking as everything around us was encased in frozen glass. Unlike some people in our town, we didn't lose our electricity. We even still have cable. For a while this evening, I was without Internet, but that kind of loses its impact when you have an iPhone.

Anyway, not only did we have to deal with ice this morning, but a tree fell during the early hours of the morning (sometime between 6:30am and 7:00am) blocking the only entrance/exit to our development. By the time we walked off the hill this morning, some industrious person had removed the center part of the tree, opening up the road.

In times like this, the neighborhood starts to work together. Steve and some other men from our housing development got together yesterday and cleared the hill using shovels and with the help of someone driving by who had a blade on his truck. This morning, when I was thinking we would have to wait for I wasn't sure who to come by and remove the tree someone who lives up here just went down and cut up the tree. After the state road plow came through this afternoon (wonder of wonders), Steve got busy and shoveled out the driveways of several people who live near us.

Times like this seem to pull people together. I forget that when the sun in shining.

Still doesn't mean I like snow. I do not.

Alleluia? Halleluia?

This piece of art glass is hanging in my office; it was a gift from the retiring president and his wife. I think it's really pretty hanging there, and I thought I could get a picture of it, so I did.

It wasn't until then that I realized the word used on the glass is "Alleluia" -- not "Hallelujah." According to Yahoo! there's really no difference, except that the Germans translated the word from the Hebrew slightly differently.

But thinking about that -- my own blindness in really seeing what is in front of me -- I am reminded that the biggest part of communication is listening.

Do we listen? Do we concentrate enough on what is in front of us to really be the joyful recipient of what is being communicated to us? Can we be good communicators if we are not good listeners? I am wondering today if our assumptions sometimes speak louder than what is truly being told to us.

Alleluia. Praise to God.

In God's Image

I was surfing through some blogs the other day when I found a post on the blog Gifted for Leadership: A Community of Christian Leadership called In the Face of Tragedy. Read this quote:

If I hurt this much in the face of such distant pain…how much more the heart of God who knows by name every one of those dead. I grieve with the Holy Spirit—moved to share in the sufferings and passions of Christ. This is why he came. God loves the world so much.

I wonder if this is part of the explanation of God's role in suffering. We are hurt by the pain of others because of God's presence in our lives. We suffer with them because God suffers with them. Others share our pain because of God.

I know it sounds simplistic, but I wonder if we take empathy and sympathy for granted because we don't know how to live any other way, but could those characteristics be part of what makes us made in the image of God?

God works through us, his people, his Church. We are God’s answer to a hurting world—we must point people to Christ’s love, healing, redemption.

Community

Long day -- tired tonight.

This image is of a dogwood tree at Spring Heights. I like it because it is SO MANY flowers. There is beauty in a single flower -- it is unique and perfect. This image reminds me, though, that there is beauty in many flowers, seen together.

Each of us is a child of God, beautiful and unique, claimed and beloved of God. There is a loveliness to community, too, though. Together, we create something which none of us can be on our own. We create community. And it is beautiful.

Covenant Community

As part of our youth retreat, we talked to the kids about God's vision and mission for our church.

The beginning of that statement calls our church a "covenant community." JtM asked them what it means to be a covenant community. I thought their answers were interesting:

Covenant -- promised, united, together, desirable, bargain, agreement, reliable, trusting.

Community -- together, population, relationship, community, harmony.

One of the youth defined it as a "group of people working together for a common goal. We talked about a covenant community as a group which shares tolerance moving toward acceptance.

To me they are a living example of a covenant community. The youth from our church, as different as the individual members are, share the love of Christ with each other. I think that they came pretty close to defining covenant community with words, but I think that they "get" it by the way they walk together as a youth fellowship.

Many are the times when I know that I learn more from them than I could ever teach them. I am blessed to have a small role in their group.

Image: Cabin at Spring Heights -- doesn't it look like home?

Vulnerability

I'm thinking today about vulnerability. Is it a requirement of a relationship with someone else? Christ came to the world as a human, and placed himself in a very vulnerable position so that we would come to know the love of God -- to be in a relationship with him.

I've always considered that vulnerability -- the position in which we place ourselves that opens us up to hurt -- is the result of a deeper relationship, not a prerequisite to one, but maybe I've been wrong, or maybe it can work both ways.

I remember about a year ago I shared a personal story with a friend via email. It wasn't a huge vulnerability, but wasn't something I would tell someone walking down the street, either. I saw him that evening at an event, and was almost embarrassed by what I had shared. We're closer friends now than we were then, and I wouldn't think twice about telling him that story now.

Someone else told me a story the other day -- it was a hard thing for him to do, I think, and it was done as a means to affirm me. It was a moment of vulnerability for him, but I wonder if in this situation, it was a sacrificial moment.

Is all of this making sense at all? Christ became vulnerable for us so that we could develop a closer relationship with him. I think of Peter, walking on the water -- an act of trust and vulnerability which he did because he was already in a relationship with Jesus. I also think that vulnerability can be a cross we pick up sacrificially -- as a means of grace.

It's all about trust, isn't it?

Say What?

When we talk to our son G on the cell phone, and sometimes even in person, he often makes no sense at all. I assume that he is forming words and connecting them into thoughts, but what I hear does not communicate any ideas at all. It's gobbledegook. It's just normal teenage speech, but I think sometimes that I need a 14 to over 40 dictionary. And he needs lessons in how to not mumble.

I found a blog entry today that defined the word lime in this way -- slang from Trinidad & Tobago which refers to a group of friends hanging out together, either arranged or impromptu, usually involving food, and always beverages (not necessarily alcoholic). It's not hurried, and the location doesn't matter. To lime, as I now understand it, it to get together with friends just for the purpose of enjoying each other. Isn't that a good word? But, if I go up to a friend tomorrow and say, "Let's get together for a good lime," I am not going to be understood (especially since none of my friends are from Trinidad).

Do we sometimes speak, and think we are understood? Do you have a conversation with someone and realize that the two of you are on completely different wavelengths? Steve, on Sunday, watched two people talking to each other. They were both talking about Suzanne, but he thinks that they were talking about two different Suzanne's and neither of them knew it.

Our method of communication if flawed.

Why is it, do you think, that some of us are so certain that we completely understand what God is trying to tell us? Why is it that we become so convinced that we understand what the Bible is saying and that our interpretation is completely right? I can't even understand my own son sometimes; what makes me think that God and I are always on the same track? Is it not possible that we could be mistaken?

Bear each other's burdens

One of the lectionary readings for this week is Galatians 6:1-6, 7-16. As I was reading it this morning, I read it in both the NIV version and The Message version. Compare verse 2:

NIV: Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

NRSV: Bear one another's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

The Message: Stoop down and reach out to those who are oppressed. Share their burdens, and so complete Christ's law.

What do you think of The Message version? Does it seem to say the same thing as the NRSV or NIV version?

I often like The Message -- at times it really captures the spirit of the what the writer was originally trying to say. In this particular instance, however, I think the bias of the author shows through the translation.

Don't get me wrong -- I do think that what The Message implies in this verse is right in line with Christ's message, but in this particular case, I think Eugene Peterson has narrowed the scope of the verse -- I think it's meaning is bigger than The Message gives it credit for.

There is a song by Watermark called More Than You'll Ever Know. This line is from that song:

You have carried me
You have taken upon a burden that wasn't your own

I think that this might be one of the things that Christ meant when he said to love one another. We carry each other's burdens -- gladly and with joy -- because that's what community means. Our burdens are lighter because we have help carrying them. Other people's burdens are lighter than one would expect because God steps in and lifts some of the weight. We find that in blessing other people we are blessed beyond our imagination.

We don't stoop down, we reach out. We reach out to those who are oppressed, yes, but we also reach out to the person right next to us.

We do it because we are Christian. We do it because we are part of community. We do it because we can't not love each other.

It's grace, and it is amazing.

Image: Moon rising over the ocean. I just love the colors.

Trinity as Community

Today is Trinity Sunday, so I thought I would take this opportunity to write a post I've been thinking about for a while. It is based totally on someone else's idea, but I really like the concept, and am going to share it here.

The book Everybody's Normal Until you Get to Know Them by John Ortberg is about community -- about our need for community, friends, each other, and how to nurture other people in community. I read the book a while back and really enjoyed it.

In the second chapter, Ortberg takes some time to talk about the Trinity and how it relates to the idea of community.

His premise is that all three "components" of the trinity are shy. They -- God, Jesus and the spirit -- are not shy in the way that we would think of it. They are shy not in a self-serving, self-absorbed way, but in a shyness of other-centeredness.

I love his description of the work of the Holy Spirit:

Imagine drawing a stick figure on the chalkboard representing Jesus. The spirit sounds behind the chalkboard, "reaches around with one hand and points with a single finger to the image of Jesus. "Look at him; listen to him; learn from him; follow him, worship him, be devoted to him, serve him, love him, be preoccupied with him."

Shyness of other-centeredness

Jesus points toward God, and tell us to follow him. He does not bask in the glory of being God's son. He prays, "No thy will but yours' be done."

Believe it or not, God demonstrates this attitude as well. The two times we hear him speaking in the New Testament, he is pointing to Jesus, and saying, "Blessed is this one. Watch and listen to this one."

Within this trinity, there is a shyness of love, each pointing to other member, and uplifting. It is a model of community. Each points to the other in a gracious circle. "The trinity is a self-sufficient community of unspeakably magnificent personal beings of boundless love, knowledge and prayer," says Dallas Willard as quoted by Ortberg.

God didn't create us out of loneliness. He created us "because he was so in love with community that he wanted a world full of people to share it with."