Regarding Community
September 17, 2008The idea of community is wierd. What is community really? Is it the place that you live in? Or is it the company that you keep around you? We have a strange community emerging within the last five years or so with MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and even as you read this blog entry we are engaging in some sort of faux community.
We have our home community in which we live in a neighborhood. This is our direct community. Sometimes we try to block out this community by building fences around our homes, to which only those who are invited may enter. This home community is quite tricky, because none of us truly want to invite others into our lives usually. Sometimes I find myself inside of my home with the blinds drawn and the lights off so that nobody thinks I am home. We seclude ourselves so that we never have to speak to others, but really we are missing out on the community that we crave.
We also have our work community (neighborhood) in which we go and punch the clock. Sometimes we get so caught up in how much our job sucks that we forget the impact that we might have on people. Sometimes when working at the church, I feel like a jukebox playing the songs that people like or dislike. I feel like I am there to play the hits, but then something changes. I see somebody standing and truly worshipping. Those are the moments that my work community is at its best: when I’ve led somebody to a place of happiness, or they are touched by Jesus. The same thing happens when I work at starbucks. Sometimes I see people who are regulars coming in as I am leaving and they say things like, “you can’t leave, who will make my drink for me?” Though they may not be complimenting me, I feel that I am touching their lives in some way. Though I leave somedays hating people more than one man should, I know that Jesus loves them even more than I hate them.
I think this is the purpose of community. True community is the effect that you have on other people’s lives. Whether you are living around them, serving them at your job, or even seeing them on the same bus everyday, true community is formed when they notice you aren’t there anymore. When people start to miss you, then you know that you have formed community.
You should just do an entire worship set completely by request. Like TRL worship.
I’m part of a ministry at City Bible in Portland that focuses on building community among twenty and thirty-somethings. I think of community as the people you love to live life with – the people who visit you in the hospital, who babysit your kids, whose house you go to for dinner, who you look for at church, who call you when stuff goes down, who you txt at 10pm when you’re in bed, who pray for you and hold you accountable.
Community adds so much depth, fulfillment, and meaning to life. Especially life as a believer.
Cheers.