meditatio at the water's edge

Here's a bit of something I'm working on for Jenison's leadership seminar. You can read the rest of it at my personal blog: a green steersman.


True Christian community is truth-full.
We are a people who are formed by a particular story about God and life. We have certainly emphasized the content of that story as truth (idea), but have a long way to go in demonstrating the power of that story as truth (embodiment of the idea). Yes, we must continue to affirm the truth by saying, “We believe,” but we must endeavor toward the incarnation of those statements. A truth-full community will, of course, endeavor to understand the Scriptures and to seek the One who speaks through the Scriptures, but it will also seek to live their lives as a response to the One who speaks. It is truth-full when its action has integrity with its Word.


True Christian community is costly.
Our culture values privacy and independence; two things that, to a significant degree, will necessarily be replaced with accountability and interdependence. Sharing life together implies a very costly exercise—sharing.


True Christian community is fuzzy.
We like to think of community as ‘intimacy’ or closeness. This is a problematic definition, however, because we only have ‘intimacy’ with (at most!) a handful of people. Community does not equal ‘intimacy’ but connection and responsibility. As a Christian community, we are connected to one another in Christ, and therefore the boundaries of that community become fuzzy. We are responsible for each other regardless of how ‘close’ we feel to each other.


True Christian community is pain-full.
Whenever you get your life tangled in with other people, you risk getting hurt. When you get it tangled in with a good number of people, you are assured of getting hurt. When you get tangled in with people, their problems become your own—you realize that you are your brothers’ and sisters’ keeper. Development of true community requires openness to the stranger, the poor, the sick, and the hurting. This means openness not only in attitude, but in agenda as well. So as a group of people with Christ in the center, we accept those realities with the promise that the One in the center is able to bind up our brokenness and lead us in forgiveness and healing....

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