Well, this one is going to sound odd coming from the guy who is continually talking about biblical community, but stick with me. The church has built its identity around community and that is wrong.If you are trying to build community, you are defining the church according to something that feels right to us. The gospel message gets reinterpreted in a form that validates our sense of belonging. It becomes, in essence, a justification of how we interpret family. In the process, the gospel message is watered down or even perverted.
Right now, some of you are saying, “Woohoo! No more push to get into small groups!” Hold your horses. We don’t shoot for community. We shoot for mission! And a right understanding of mission brings us together as a community formed in the context of ordeal. Hirsch calls this Communitas. And while the ordeal may be a matter of survival as it was in the 1st and 2nd Centuries and for the last 60 years in China, it doesn’t have to be that ominous. It simply means community formed around a worthy cause, namely the gospel of the Kingdom.
Communitas is a longing that God has placed in us, a desire to be part of something significant and far bigger than our puny lives. But communitas has been lost from the church primarily because of the absence of the other aspects that Hirsch outlines in his book. In the end, we have a safe, predicable, comfortable faith. And that’s because we have a safe, predictable, comforting God. And while He sends us His Spirit as a comforter, He clearly is not safe and loves to bust out of our boxes of predictability. Besides, ask yourself why the Spirit would be a comforter and Jesus would say that we need Him if we’re safe and life is predictable.
Want to understand communitas better? Spend some time with CS Lewis; the beavers will tell you that Aslan is not safe, but He is good. And spend some time with Lewis’ friend, Tolkien and set out on the most amazing journey with the most unlikely and unformidable comrades as they play their ordained roles in the final destruction of evil in the kingdom.
Or, seek comfort and miss the adventure for which you were created and redeemed…
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the hobbits were not a community, but a fellowship.. Get it straight.
ReplyDeleteGreat post today.. thanks.
Agreed, JT. And the fellowship included a human, a wizard, an elf, and a dwarf! What bound them together was not familial, but missional. That's why I chose to call them "comrades."
ReplyDeleteLOTR is one of my younger daughter's favorite movies, so I have the pleasure of watching often. Maybe I'll blog later on my favorite character. Would be interesting to see how many agree...
Thnx for your comments. Enjoying the feedback.
I want to be the elf if we role play... It's the hair.. :)
ReplyDeleteAlright, now that you've mentioned my favorite books, I'll add to the role play with JT. Although it would be easy to say my favorite character is Aragorn/Strider, the reality is that for some strange reason I've always identified with Boromir. A strong, noble, but flawed, dude who got it right in the end. Not sure what that says about me...
ReplyDeleteAndy Spade
Ah, Andy. I don't see you as the blowing-your-horn kinda guy! ;-) But I do believe that Boromir represents a lot of us.
ReplyDeleteTwo excellent suggestions, but neither is that favorite character for me. Again, you'll just have to wait. S