A sense of community

Short of the death sentence the worst punishment our prisons can give a man is solitary confinement. “The hole,” as they call it, is reserved for the worst offenders. The men there have a real struggle trying to stay sane. Why? There are many reasons but the most telling is that we were not made to be alone. God made us to live in community with one another. Have you ever heard someone say that their vacation just wasn’t the same without someone with whom to share it? Community again! A lot of good things happen when we live in community. We take care of each other. We learn from each other, and we experience a deep sense of value as we have an impact on each other’s lives.

As humans we all live in communities. We live in families. We run with buddies from school or work, and we have our church. The church is a community given to us by God himself—family too. Mature Christians recognize that the church is their home. We’ve all met someone who said, “You don’t have to join a church to be a Christian.” When I hear that quip, I always reply, “Yeah and you don’t have to go to an airport to be an airplane. But if you’re an airplane, the airport is your home. In other words, if you’re a Christian, the church is your home.”

Jesus taught us that the community of believers is very important. Although he took time for solitude and prayer, he most often came into the community to be with people. As we read the gospels, we find Jesus going from town to town, by the seashore, in the temple courts, at someone’s home. Wherever there were people, there was Jesus. He lived deliberately in front of them all. He said things for their sake and modeled obedience for their development. Remember when he washed the disciples’ feet in John 13? Jesus was teaching the disciples about love in the community.

We want to learn to live actively in God’s community, the church. Our study takes us into 1 Corinthians 12. There Paul explains that we are firmly connected to one another. Read the passages and explore the questions with someone in your Christian community.

1 Corinthians 12:12,13,18,21,27
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body. . . . In fact God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” Now you are the body of Christ.