When the Church is the Church tagged: ,

When the Church is the Church

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Sitting in my living room watching television one evening, my daughter having gone to bed (this was during those less hectic days of only one child; they didn’t last very long), the show my wife and I were watching was cut short. A power outage deprived us of our TV-watching experience. Agitated, we looked at one another in wonder. “What are we going to do?”

Before too long, we began to hear muffled voices outside and gales of laughter. Being the nosy neighbor, I peeked through the Venetian blind to see several neighbors out in the square talking. Intrigued, my wife and I decided to join them. Jumping in the conversation, we were then sharing about life, love, troubles, and difficulties. It was not too long before the size of the group had grown to a point that group conversation was impossible. So we began breaking off into smaller groups, following the trails of our own discussions. Several children were out of bed, playing freeze tag, rendering useless the earlier evening’s bath.

Having been outside for nearly two hours, we heard a phone ring from inside a neighbor’s apartment. The owner rushed inside to answer it and returned with the ominous news; the power should be restored within the hour. “Awww!” was the collective groan. As predicted, within an hour from the phone call, lights flickered back on, air conditioners whirred back to life, and like toy soldiers, we all filed back to our apartments.

Falling prey to the American cult of individualism, any sense of community that our neighborhood had developed in those crucial hours was just overwhelmed and consumed by the “powers” that be. What did it take to push comfortable people out of their apartments and into loving fellowship? It was not a desire on behalf of those affected; it was rather that something we consider invaluable in our lives was removed, leaving a void that had to be filled. And when television, radio, the Internet, and the XBOX were ripped away, then we found it necessary to generate community.

The American ideal of individualism is in many respects purely antithetical to the Scripture’s teachings on community. Nowhere in Scripture will you find an independent Christian. Nowhere will you find a Lone Ranger. Nowhere will you find a Christian walled off from others, an island unto himself and even, when Christians find themselves in this circumstance, they cry out for fellowship. Consider Paul:

“Be diligent to come to me quickly; for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and has departed for Thessalonica—Crescens for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you…” 2 Timothy 4:9-11

Our churches often resemble the attitude of a waitress in a restaurant a brother pastor and I patronized while out of town. As we were seated, she quickly introduced herself and intoned, “May I take your order?” Later, “What can I do for you?” “Is there anything you need?” “May I refill your glass?” Inflection and emphasis were placed on those second person pronouns, making it abundantly clear that my needs were paramount. This kind of thinking cuts community off at the knees. It’s a natural progression; when we become engrossed in ourselves, we become blind to the needs of those around us.

This cult of the individual has done great harm to our churches. Independence is a virtue in American Christian experience whereas Biblical Christianity teaches something radically different. Somehow this fallacy has crept into our thinking and warped our perception of what a Christian is and to an even greater degree what a church is. Our faith is not meant to be kept—it is meant to be given away. Our churches are not meant to be “well-oiled machines” with people treated as commodities. With this attitude (albeit unwitting) we perpetuate the system rather than simply touching hurting people, lulled into believing people are a means to an end rather than the end.

The fact is the church has become abysmally deficient in developing genuine community among her people. Our cult of individuality and “do it self” mentality holds community at bay. We convulse at the notion that we cannot do it ourselves. To exacerbate the understanding, culture perpetuates the notion that it is nobler to do it on your own. Is it? Our self-centeredness bristles at the idea of giving up praise for the good of the community.

Though this is primarily a Southern Baptist blog, it is a decidedly Christian blog. The need for community is not only important among Southern Baptist churches but even more so among the Body of Christ. I pray this blog becomes a conduit for exploring this idea of community and how we, not just as Southern Baptists, but as individual Christians committed to the cause of Christ can cultivate genuine community, counter to our individualistic culture.