Community

Community is a hot topic. The word is used to describe everything from a gathering of people, to those who use the same App, follow the same team, or live in the same high rise/condominium. It is used, in other words, for almost anything that involves people, which is just about everything. Its use is truly ubiquitous, and therefore in danger of becoming virtually meaningless. We all use Apps; I use an App, a very good one, that appeals to its users that they are part of a vibrant world-wide community.  I’m not sure how a community can be made up of people who don’t know each other, much less, have never spoken, and never met. What, then, do we mean by community? Would it be more pertinent to call them subscribers with a common interest? Apparently not, because buzz words are also buzz saws -  you dissent at your peril.

Words matter. They are the way we communicate; how we describe, articulate, and share meaning. Honking, whistling, or snorting doesn’t cut it. Words have meaning and meaning has social and legal capital. Granted, words can and do change as a natural course. Some words however are deliberately co-opted to legitimise something that is illegitimate in the sense of what a given word means, and has done so for a long time. Changing the meaning of words leeches meaning from them.

Take for instance, peril in mind - the word, marriage.  For eons marriage was understood as a socially binding contract between a man and a woman with the intention of having children thus ensuring continuity of families, tribes and nations.  Straight forward enough, regardless of whether we uphold or despise patriarchal or matriarchal models of family and community. Family was, still is, something that is inherently foundational and biologically reproducible.

Not so today; every type of preferentially based partnership is demanding it can and must be recognised as a marriage, even if the concept of marriage is no longer agreed upon. In these cases, marriage is no longer marriage; it is something else. Same sex marriage is not marriage.  Call it what you will but it isn’t marriage as it has the inability to reproduce, it doesn’t compromise the shared complementary nature of a man and a woman, and it doesn’t adequately model and define relational life for children, as being the sum and reflection of what men and women bring to the table.

In a similar way, community is no longer community. The very hallmarks of community are not, in many spheres, in existence anymore. Community is defined by actual relationships, relationships with the tensions that connection brings, the necessity of graciousness and forbearance, and personal sacrifice that communities, to succeed, require. In simple terms, a community is that place with those people that requires personal presence, and all our commitment and energies to prosper. There is no App community that qualifies. Football teams don’t engender community, just rowdy fans. Influencers don’t build community - they attract subscribers, the susceptible, and the curious. Online communities aren’t communities (unless on-line is a tool for existing communities of people who already tangibly/physically relate).

All these variants of community lack the very things that make for community. There is no accountability (a notable feature of genuine community), no depth of long term relationship, no shared table, no common life explored and lived out, and no tangible care in troubles.  In other words there is no community; it is form without substance.

We, the church, are in danger of holding to the value of community and failing to live it out in a connective, transformative, biblically oriented manner. Family, community and connection was part and parcel of Jewish life, of life for most peoples for that matter. The church was built on this structure. Life was centered around the home, the table, the synagogue, the temple, the village, the town; travel was of necessity or for the more adventurous - and in this case, the more were the few. 

But we just don’t live in that sort of world anymore: travel and its concomitant disconnection, is common due to job opportunities, there is an ease of getting to places once difficult to visit, family is disjointed and relationships are less long term (including marriages). Add to this a consumer orientation where accumulation is encouraged, as is self-realised individualism, and you end up with shallow and/or appearance oriented relationships.

So, being a functional, contributing member of a local church is swimming upstream, and the current isn’t insignificant. It takes commitment and work, the more so because it is about people and as we all know the church would be perfect but for people - you in particular, or was that - me? There is no substitute for time, as any relationship takes time to develop. The people who will remain through life as friends/fellow followers take many years and aren’t many. 

At the core of New Testament life is community. At the heart of this is the table, where hospitality reigns,and the Lord’s Supper is practised. Churches recognise this and speak often of community but the nature of our church gatherings is Sunday, celebration and crowd. Creating space for meaningful connection is not easily if at all found in a crowd, and the larger the church, potentially the lonelier the attender. But it is not just a size issue as small churches can tend towards exclusivism - they lock out guests. It is partly that we haven’t grown up in tight knit communities/families so we don’t have templates. All we know is - what is best for me.

The antidote to all this is the work of the Holy Spirit, who creates the desire for belonging, for connection, for community, but it will take more than attendance, listening and leaving. It will take time, especially in homes and around tables. To experience community you must be in a community - that is, you know the people you are connecting with; people you are able to speak to, pray for, weep and rejoice with, encourage and challenge. 

That is the church, visible, local, connected - a light in a darkened world of profound disconnection - real community.