Real Community

It's obvious to me and most everybody else on the face of the earth that most of us love friendships. Friendships are incredible. It's interesting to see how natural friendships seem to develop especially when we are young. Common goals and hobbies bring a lot of folks together. Dar and I ran into an old friend last week. He and I coached baseball together. Our families hung out together bouncing from game to game and so it was only natural to extend that relationship beyond the baseball games. We would often get together during the holidays. As the years passed by and the kids got older our getting together became less frequent. I have to admit it was great to see this old friend and it has really got me thinking since that night.

I struggled to have that kind of friendship in the institutionalized church. It didn't seem real. People would always put on a happy face at church but you knew down deep inside that most of their real friends probably were elsewhere. I was a staff Pastor at a very large non-denominational church for a couple of years and the Senior Pastor had this passion to get everyone into home groups. There was pressure from him all the time to get people into home groups so that they could experience community. I really believe that he was well intentioned and that he knew that real community doesn't really occur on Sunday but it became obvious that the home group development was forced and it just wasn't working. The only place that it was working was with the original groups that founded the church. They were friends to begin with and so community for them was natural. Here again the failure of institutionalized control.

I am starting to get really psyched over the opportunity to experience real community once again and my heart of hearts tells me that it won't be an organized thing at all. It will be more of a happening. I have a hunch that this has been God's design for us all along. The controls and organizational aspect was all our idea. God's idea is relationship. Real life giving relationship and real friendship. Where you see real friendship you see the image of God in all of it.

Don't you see how difficult it can be to recognize real community when we are involved in all these man made organized models. We think that if we organize these things in the name of the Lord that we are doing the right thing. What we are being is presumptuous. We are presuming that we know what is best for us and God. It's subtle but it's our ball game. We want control.

The Lord created us differently. He created a family. He views our life as our Heavenly Father not as our Heavenly Chief Executive Officer. Breaking the religious mold is tough but if you look at your life's history you will see real friendships and you will see pseudo friendships. You have real community with people that really know you. That's God's plan. He just wants included. It sounds too simple but we have really complicated this whole thing. We are made in God's image and yes we are tarnished and flawed but we really do love the things that God loves because He made us to love that way. God is closer to our heart than we think. He also has a community of friendships for each and every one of us if we look in the right places.

The fellow that I coached baseball with knows all about my love for Jesus. He had me pray for the boys before and after the game. I was accepted by him and I loved him for that. He thought it was a privelege to be my friend and he respected my view of life. I never imposed my view on him. I just loved him and his family. Whenever he had a question or two about spritual things he would come to me because it was easy for him to talk to me.

Yes folks, I'm getting excited about the possibilities for real community. I wish the same for you. It's out there if we look in the right places.

For God So Loved....