Christianity was birthed in relationship. We need each other in order to stay the course and not get distracted. I need you. I need you to be there to hear and see what I am going through and how I am living. I need you to ask me questions and hold me accountable to the distractions that I allow to become my focus. I need you to comfort me when I am down and laugh with me when things are good. We need each other to keep going on this journey.
We need each other for encouragement. I was talking with person "A" the other night. He did not feel like coming to church the other night. Person"B" wanted to come but needed a lift from person "A". Because, person "B" wasn't in church, person "C", who they have a relationship with, didn't come. If “A” had have come to church, “B” and “C” would have been there as well. We operate in relationship and therefore how we act effects everyone else around us. Many people have made comments about being discouraged because other people aren't there.
A month ago, someone told me they were encouraged by a conversation they had with someone else at church. The other person didn't even remember the conversation and yet, they had encouraged someone. This only happens because we are together. Just because you can’t see all the benefits up front, doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Outside of Church community rarely happens. Our community is a very good example of this. Since several people have left, saying that community will continue, we have rarely seen or heard from them. When we do get together, the conversation is more like weather-talk than real issues, because we do not really know what is going on in each others lives. We have less in common. Church helps make this happen because we are all in the same place at the same time and have connection. I have been asked over and over the last few months where "so and so" is. People ask because they miss you.
Outside of church/community accountability doesn't happen. Some have suggested that they do not want accountability. This is a very dangerous view. You will not find favorable research anywhere for the idea of no accountability. We as humans need accountability. I have had several conversations lately about people others see as "regressing". Their behavior has become more hedonistic and there language has become vulgar. The unfortunate thing is that these are just symptoms of what happens to the heart when we are not connected with each other and God. When this starts to happen within community, we are there to challenge each other, ask questions, encourage each other and pray for each other
Church was "invented" because we need to be together, to be challenged by God’s word and worship God, which most of us don't do on our own. God knows what we are like.
Unfortunately, as much as we have strived to be different, in so many ways we are still the same, because we do not fight the philosophy of our culture. We have a tendency to be consumers first. We judge everything, including church and community only on the basis of what I get out of it. We rarely consider what we can put into it. What do I have to offer, whether I feel like it or not, because that is what God asks of us. Someone once told me that they weren't coming to our house for open house anymore, because they didn't think it was right that Syl had to clean up after everybody. Apparently the concept of being a part of the community and helping clean up and/or recruiting others to do the same never occurred to this person.
When you aren't in church, it affects the rest of us. You are missed. Many times it is discouraging to others. When a part of our body is missing it hurts us. The world can not see how we love each other if we never get together. The church is the visible manifestation of Christ in the world.
For most of us every week is a matter of do I put myself above the "we", do I do what I need to do, for my sake and the sake of the community or what I feel like doing?
